“I’m putting my highbrow books up top”
“I’m putting my highbrow books up top”
“ ’Course I will. And I hereby give you permission to do the same.”
“Thank you, oh,thankyou! It’s tiresome work, isn’t it?”
“Jiminy! I should say it was! Come on, Doll, let’s make some lemonade. I’m choked with dust and with some old dry lingo that leaked out of my wise books. Come on, Dollums.”
“All right. Got any lemons?”
“Yep, brought some on purpose. Sugar too. And we can make it in that darling kitchenettio!”
Away the girls went, and concocted lemonade that tasted like fairy nectar. To squeeze lemons by means of their own glass squeezer, to get sugar out of their own sugar-box (after they had put it in), to draw water from their own flashing, shining, silver-plated faucets,—this was joy indeed!
“Seems to me I never tasted anything so good,” said Dolly, gazing into her glass, as they sat at their golden dining-room table.
“Nor I. But it makes me so fearfully hungry.”
“At one we must go home to lunch, I s’pose. Wish we could lunch here.”
“We will next Saturday, but of course, we’ve got to get a lot of things together to do that.”
“It’s nearly one, now. We must finish up this lemonade and scoot. Will you come back right after your lunch is over?”
“Yes, of course. Quick as I can hop here. But I’m so hungry I ’spect I’ll eat a whole lot.”
“Me too.”
CHAPTER VISUCH A LUNCHEON!
Thelemonade finished, and the glasses washed and put away, the girls were about to start for home, when along came Trudy and Norah, the Fayres’ cook, each with a tray covered with a big, white napkin.
“Oh, goody,goody, GOODY!” shouted Dotty, catching sight of them first. “It’s lunch to eat over here! It is! Itis!”
They flung open the front door and as they did so, there appeared from the house on the other side, Aunt Clara and Maria, the Roses’ old coloured cook, one carrying a basket, and the other a strange-looking burden, muffled up in a piece of blanket.
“Glory be! but dis yer am hot!” and Maria hurried in with the blanketed bundle, which proved to be a silver pot of cocoa, steaming and fragrant.
Laughing with glee, the girls relieved the messengers of their loads and put them all on the dining-room table. The callers declined to stay, having a feeling that half the fun of Treasure House was in the Two D’s having it to themselves. So away they went, and with shrieks of delight, the donations were opened.
“Did youeversee such a picture!” cried Dolly, as she brought to view a small platter of cold tongue, garnished round with asparagus tips and tiny pickles.
“And gaze on this to go with it!” Dotty said, flourishing a plate of sandwiches, delicate and dainty, and of several varieties.
“Let’s eat ’em now, while the cocoa’s hot, and anyway, I can’t wait.”
Dotty seated herself at the table, while Dolly, in her methodical way, went on with the preparations. “I’ll put the dessert on this side table,” she said. “Don’t begin, Dot, till it’s all ready.Willyou look! Here’s a Floating Island! Just enough for us two, in Trudy’s best glass dish! And Maria’s little raisin cakes! Say, Dot, they telephoned or something and arranged this lunch between the two houses.”
“ ’Course they did.Docome on, Dolly. Don’t stand admiring the things all day. Come on and eat.”
“All right, everything is all ready now, and we can eat in comfort. Here’s a lovely basket of fruit, but we won’t want that for lunch, let’s keep it for this afternoon.”
“Keep it for Christmas! if you’ll only come on! Dolly Fayre, you are so slow, you do exasperate me somethin’ awful!”
“Dotty Rose, you are so impatient, you drive me crazy!” but Dolly came, smiling and tranquil, and took her seat at the table.
“Isn’t it great!” she said, looking about at the pretty golden room, the tempting feast, daintily set forth, and at eager Dotty, her dark eyes sparkling, and her red lips pouting at Dolly’s delay.
“Simpully gorgeous!” and Dotty’s pout disappeared as they began the first meal in Treasure House. “I say, Dollum, isn’t it funny how we Roses came here and happened to live alongside of you Fayres, and you and I became such chums?”
“Awful funny. And we’re such good friends, even though we’re so different in every way.”
“Not in every way, we like the same things often, but sometimes we’re so very different, it makes us seem differenter than we really are.”
“Yes, I guess that’s it, though I can’t exactly follow your meaning. My, but these sandwiches are good! Let’s have lunch here every Saturday, shall us? Of course, we’ll fix the things ourselves. We couldn’t expect Trudy and your Aunt Clara to do it,—only this first time. But Norah and Maria will make things for us, and we can do a lot ourselves. I mean to learn to cook,—not so much cook on the stove, you know,—as to make sandwiches and salads and desserts and deviled eggs and—”
“And cocoa—and oh, Dollyrinda, some Saturday we’ll ask somebody to lunch, and we’ll make all the things ourselves!”
“And, oh, Dotsie, when the boys come home for Thanksgiving, maybe we won’t have fun! Brother Bert is crazy to see this house.”
“And Bob is, too. I expect those two brothers of ours will just take possession of it.”
“ ’Deed they won’t! But of course they can come here all they want, and if they want to borrow it for a boy racket of their own, why of course we’ll let ’em.”
“Well, isn’t that pretty much taking possession, I’d like to know! Have some more cocoa?”
“You mustn’t say, ‘Have somemore’ anything. You ought to say, ‘Have some cocoa?’ ”
“But you’ve already had some!”
“I know it. But that’s good manners. You must ignore the fact of my having had any.”
“Pooh! Well, Miss Fayre, as you haven’t had any cocoa, to my knowledge, mayn’t I beg you to try it?”
“Since you put it so politely, I don’t care if I do take another cup or two. You see,Idon’t have to ignore it, I own right up.”
“You and your manners are too much for me!”
“But, honestly, Dotty, it is right not to put in the ‘more.’ And you mustn’t do it.”
“All right, I won’t. But it’s simply impossible for me to ignore the dozens of sandwiches you’ve eaten. So I’ll say, Have some cake?”
“As the sandwiches are all gone, I believe I will begin on the cake. But, somehow, I don’t feel as hungry as I did. Do you?”
“Nixy. Say, Doll, here’s an idea! S’pose we save these cakes,—there’s a lot of them,—and that big basket of fruit till this afternoon and invite the two Rawlins girls over. How about it?”
“All right, I’ll go you. For, honest, I can’t eat any of it now. But we’ll eat up Trudy’s Floating Island, she makes it lovely, and there isn’t such a lot of that.”
“All right. If we’re going to ask those girls, we must get a move on and do up these dishes. I hate to do dishes, don’t you?”
“Yes, at home. But it isn’t so bad here. It’s kind of fun!”
“Not very much fun. But anyway, the dishes that belong over to our homes, we can pile in this basket, and Maria will come for them.”
“They’ve got to be washed first, though. It isn’t nice to send them back unwashed.”
“Oh, what a prim old maid! You ought to live alone with a cat and a poll parrot!”
“That isn’t old-maidness, that’s just plain, every-day tidiness. Now you get a dish towel, and I’ll wash, and we’ll have these things put to rights in a jiffy.”
The girls knew how, and they did their work well, but it did take some time, for such work cannot be done too swiftly. But on the whole, they enjoyed the task, and were gratified at the sight of the shining glass and china in their own glass-cupboard, and the neatly packed basket and tray full of dishes to be returned to their home pantries.
Then they went and sat before their Study fire, to rest and talk.
“Seems to me,” said Dolly, “time does go awful fast. Here it’s after three o’clock, and the afternoon is ’most gone.”
“And we must go home and dress,” said Dotty, “if we’re going to have Grace and Ethel. These ginghams won’t do.”
“No, not in our pretty new house! Well, let’s go home and dress, and then we can telephone them, from home. Shall I do it, or you?”
“Oh, I’ll do it. You’ll have all you can do to get dressed in time to get back here before dark. You’re so everlasting slow.”
“Slow and sure, as the molasses said to the quicksilver. All right, you telephone the Rawlinses, and if they can’t come, what then? Shall we ask any one else?”
“Might ask Maisie May. But we don’t want a lot. It’ll seem too much like a party, and besides, there won’t be enough cakes to go round.”
“All right. If the Rawlinses can’t come you call up Maisie, and if she can’t, we’ll flock by ourselves. Maybe Mother’ll want me to go out with her somewhere, anyway. You never can tell.”
“Oh, don’t do that! If you do, I’ll get the girls to come just to see me. And it would be horrid not to be together this first day.”
“Well, I ’spect I can come back. Say, Dot, we ought to have a telephone connection here.”
“Wish we could, but, you know when we spoke of it, Dad said we couldn’t have everything all at once. Let’s strike for it for Christmas.”
“All right. But I s’pose we can just as well run over home to telephone. Now, you take your folkses’ basket and I’ll take our trays. Got your key?”
“Yes. Have you? I’ll lock the door. You go on. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” and both girls ran away home.
Mrs. Fayre had intended to have Dolly go on an errand with her, but, hearing of the projected plan, she let the child off.
“Go over to Treasure House, dear, if you like,” she said; “but some days I must claim you as my own little girl. I don’t want to lose you entirely.”
“No, Mumsie,” said Dolly, her arms around her mother’s neck, “but Saturdays, you know,—can’t I always have Saturdays for the House?”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Now go and dress. And be home by dinner time, Trudy expects company.”
“Yes’m,” and Dolly scampered away to dress. She heard the telephone and went to answer, thinking it might be Dotty. And it was.
“The Rawlins girls are coming,” Dotty said, “and Maisie happened to be at their house so I had to ask her too. There’ll be cakes enough if we go light ourselves.”
“All right. I’ll be over pretty soon. Good-bye.”
Dolly made a leisurely toilette, as she always did. She rarely moved quickly, but on the other hand, she was not often late. She put on a pretty little voile frock, of bluet blue, with white pipings. A big white ribbon bow tied her hair back, and then it fell in a long braid, with curly ends. She threw a big cloak round her, one of Trudy’s discarded party-cloaks, and ran across to Treasure House.
Of course, Dotty was already there. She had on a dress of bright Scotch plaid, which suited her type. Scarlet ribbons on her hair, and a necklace of bright red beads made her look quite festive.
“What a jolly cloak! Trude’s?”
“It was, but she gave it to me. Just the thing to wear to run over here. It’s warm, but it’s handy.”
“It’s dandy, you mean. Wish I had one. I guess I can bamboozle Mother or Auntie into making me one. You look awfully nice this afternoon. Why didn’t you wear your blue beads?”
“They don’t quite match this frock. They’re too greenishly blue. Why did you wear those red ones?”
“ ’Cause theydomatch this dress.”
“No, they don’t. They’re crimson and the red in the plaid is scarlet.”
“Oh, what a fuss! Well, then, I wore ’em ’cause they’re pretty and becoming and I like ’em,—so there now!”
“All right, glad you do. Here come the girls.”
Further discussion of tints and shades was cut short by the entrance of Grace and Ethel Rawlins and Maisie May.
“Well, if this isn’t the greatest place! I never heard of such a thing before. Where did you get the idea?”
“Oh, it’s just heavenly! Such lovely furniture and things!”
“And there’s another room! Why, a dining-room! Ineverdid!”
Exclamations drowned each other. The visitors went in each of the three rooms and each called forth new praises. It was indeed a novelty, and appealed to the girls’ hearts as a most desirable and cosy place to read or study.
“Butcanyou study here?” asked Maisie. “I should think you’d be all the time thinking what to do next to fix it up, and you couldn’t put your mind on your lessons.”
“It may be that way,” laughed Dolly. “We haven’t really tried it yet. You see we only moved in this morning. Not everything is to rights yet. We don’t mind you girls seeing it before it’s all done, but I want it in apple-pie order before we have the Hallowe’en party.”
“Come on,” said Dotty, “let’s gather round the Study fire, and talk over the party. Hallowe’en isn’t so very far away.”
The girls drew up chairs for some and cushions from the window-seats for some, and grouped themselves comfortably before the fire. Dolly put on a log from time to time, for she was one of those rare creatures who are born with a sense of fire-building, as others are born with a sense of colour or rhythm. She always knew just where to poke the dying logs, and where to lay the fresh ones. Dotty had promised not to touch it, for she had a fatal propensity for putting the fire out, or at least causing it to die down.
“Oh, it’s ideal!” exclaimed Grace; “I do envy you girls this place. I wish we could have one, but Father wouldn’t hear of it. He’d think it cost too much.”
“It didn’t cost such an awful lot, my father says,” said Dolly. “But, you know it isn’t always cost that counts. Lots of things are unusual, and that makes people think they are impossible. Your father could afford one, Grace, if he wanted to. You see, it could be built much cheaper than this one. You needn’t really have but one room and then—my goodness! What’s that?”
For a regular hullabaloo was heard outside. Knocking at the door, tapping at the windows, even pounding on the house itself!
Dotty looked out.
“It’s the boys!” she said, and her voice was as of one who announces a dire calamity.
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Dolly. “What shall we do? I didn’t want them this afternoon.”
“Tell ’em they can’t come in,” said Maisie. “It isn’t fair.”
“Yes,” agreed Grace. “Just open the door, and tell them they must wait till next week. I’ll tell them, if you want me to. My brother Clayton is there, and I’ll make him take the others away.”
“I’ll go to the door,” said Dotty. “I can make them go away. If Doll goes, she’ll be so good-natured she’ll let them in. And we haven’t enough—well, that is,—we don’t want them to-day.”
The noise continued, and the boys were now peeping in at the windows, and making signs of impatience.
Dotty and Grace opened the door, intending to persuade the would-be visitors to depart in peace, but the boys entered in a sort of flying wedge. It would have taken far more than two girls to keep them out. They were by no means rude or boisterous, but they were so determined to come in,—that they just came.
“Whew!” shouted Lollie Henry, “if this isn’t a peach of a place! How doyou do, Dolly and Dotty! I suppose you’re hostesses. Yes, wewillcome in, thank you! De-lighted.”
And all the other boys,—and there were half a dozen of them,—joined the acclamation.
“Looky here at the dining-room! Well, maybe we aren’t swell! Wowly-wow-wow! See the dinky little kitchen-place! What do you cook, girls? Oh, no, thank you, wecan’tstay to supper. Oh, no, wereallycan’t.Sosorry! Still, of course, if youinsist—”
The Two D’s gave in. The boys were so honestly interested and admiring, and they wanted to see everything so much that the hostesses couldn’t bear to turn them out, and indeed, they couldn’t turn them out if they had tried. So they let them stay, ungrudgingly, and after viewing the whole domain, the entire company surrounded the Study fire once more. The boys mostly sat on the floor, but that made it all the merrier.
“I’ll tell you the honest truth,” said Dolly, a little later. “We’ve got enough cakes and fruit for one piece all round, if that will satisfy you, all right.”
“Ample!” declared Tod Brown. “Inevereat more than one piece of fruit. A small quarter of an apple, or a section of an orange is a great sufficiency for my delicate appetite.”
The others rejoined with similar nonsense, and the scant refreshments were brought out and divided fairly, amid much laughter, and generous attempts at self denial.
And so the opening day at Treasure House passed off in great glee and merriment, and every guest was well pleased with the entertainment.
CHAPTER VIIFUNNY UNCLE JIM
Throughthe ensuing week the girls used Treasure House for study hours; and too, they finished up much in the way of furnishing. They were not both there every day, and sometimes neither was there, but the House was a great comfort, and soon they felt greatly at home in it.
“It’s getting fitted to us, like a shoe,” declared Dotty after a few days. “At first, I didn’t like the feel of this chair. Now, I love it.”
“Isn’t it funny how you get used to things,” said Dolly, musingly. “But you can’t always. I’m trying to get used to Bernice Forbes, and yet somehow, I can’t like her, and I don’t know why.”
“Of course you can’t, Dolly. She isn’t our sort.” And Dotty shook her head as if she had settled the question for all time.
“Oh, pshaw! Our sort! What is our sort, I’d like to know. She’s just as good as we are, just as rich, just as fashionable—”
“Oh, I don’t mean those things. She’s richer than any of our set, and fashionabler, too. But that doesn’t make her our sort.”
“Well, what does? if you know so much.”
“She’s too stuck-up, for one thing. But that isn’t the main thing. She’s a—oh, I don’t know how to express it. But she hasn’t any gumption, or any,—oh, any sense. But shethinksshe has, and it’sthatthat makes her so disagreeable.”
“I don’t think you’re altogether right, but I’m going to find out. I don’t see why nobody likes her.”
“But you ought to see that if nobody does like her, it’s because she isn’t likable, for some reason or other.”
“I do see that, and I’m going to find out that some reason or other.”
“Pitch in, and find out, then. Good luck to you! Oh, here comes Grace.”
“Thought I’d find you here,” said Grace Rawlins, as Dotty opened the door to her. “Hello, Dolly, busy studying?”
“Just about to begin to think about getting at it,” returned Dolly, laughing. “But it can wait; sit down, Gracie.”
“Can’t stay a minute. I just flew in to ask you two to go nutting to-morrow, up at Uncle Jim’s woods.”
“Gorgeous! I’d love to go,” cried Dotty and Dolly echoed, “So would I!”
“Well, it’s just only us and Ethel and Maisie. I can’t ask any more, ’cause Uncle is going to send for us in his car, and he’ll send us home again. Won’t it be fun?”
“Fine! I can do all my lessons to-night, can’t you, Doll?”
“I will, whether I can or not. What time do we start, Grace?”
“One o’clock, sharp. Be ready, won’t you? And don’t wear too good clothes, it’s a real country place.”
“All right, we’ll wear our oldest.”
Grace went away, declaring she wouldn’t longer interfere with their study, and the Two D’s set to work in earnest.
“Then we can’t have lunch over here to-morrow,” Dotty said, a bit regretfully.
“No matter, there are lots of other Saturdays. I’d rather go nutting while we can.”
“So would I. Now keep still, I’ve got to attack these Geometry problems.”
“Thank goodness, I’ve done mine. But History still stares me in the face.”
Silence settled down upon them, broken occasionally by a murmur of this sort: “Ptolemy I was followed by a series of monarchs—by a series of monarchs—what are you going to wear, Dotsie?”
“That old brown gingham—the cube root of xy—364/2—”
Dolly burst into laughter. “X square plus seven X plus fifty-three equals eleven thirds!” she quoted.
Dotty laughed back and quoted their favourite “Hunting of the Snark.”
“Taking three as the number to reason about —A convenient number to state —We add Seven and Ten and then multiply outBy One Thousand diminished by Eight.The result we proceed to divide, as you see,By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be —”
“Taking three as the number to reason about —A convenient number to state —We add Seven and Ten and then multiply outBy One Thousand diminished by Eight.The result we proceed to divide, as you see,By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be —”
“Taking three as the number to reason about —A convenient number to state —We add Seven and Ten and then multiply outBy One Thousand diminished by Eight.The result we proceed to divide, as you see,By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be —”
“Taking three as the number to reason about —
A convenient number to state —
We add Seven and Ten and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.
The result we proceed to divide, as you see,
By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be —”
“Must be what, Dolly?”
“Exactly and perfectly true,” said Dolly, who was only half listening, but who knew her Lewis Carroll by heart. Her eyes were turned up to the ceiling and she was gabbling over and over—“by a series of monarchs also called Ptolemies down to the time of Queen Cleopatra, the last of the line. By a series of Ptolemies—a series of Ptolemies also called monarchs,—h’m—also called Cleopatra—no, also called—also called—oh, whatwerethe old things called?”
“You’re nutty!” said Dotty. “No, my child, that isn’t slang, I mean you’re thinking of the nutting party and you can’t get the series of mummies straight in your head.”
“They weren’t mummies—”
“They were after they stopped being monarchs, weren’t they? All Egyptians were,—I mean, all fashionable Egyptians. Do keep still, dear, sweet Dollyrinda,dokeep still. The cube root of xy,—Oh!—I do abhor, detest, despise, abominate these cubed XY’s!”
But having thus exploded her wrath, Dotty set to work in earnest and finally conquered the refractory factors.
“Done!” she announced, at the end of a half hour of hard work. “I’ve cubed everything in sight, and some roots that were hidden deeply and darkly in the earth.”
“You ought to be a Cubist, that we read so much about in the papers.”
“No, thank you. I’ll cube what I have to, but I’ll never go out cubing, for pleasure. How are your Ptolemies?”
“Awfully mixed up. I’m going to let them simmer over night, and get up early and attack them with the dew on them. Perhaps I can lash ’em to the mast then.”
The next day turned out to be an ideal piece of weather. Clear, cold, the wind tossing white drifts of cloud about in the upper blue, and descending to whisk the nuts off the trees for those who desired them. The wind was aided and abetted by Uncle Jim’s men, and when the crowd of girls arrived, there was a widespread area of nut-besprinkled ground awaiting them.
“Well, this is some sort of a nutting party,” said Dolly, as, each with a basket, they started to the fray. “All I’ve been on lately, meant hunting around half an hour for three small nuts,—one wormy.”
“Oh, Dolly, what a sad experience,” Grace returned. “I’m so glad I brought you up here to Brazil, where the nuts come from.”
“It’s sure some little old Brazil, all right,” agreed Dotty, and then they all stooped to their task.
Baskets were quickly filled, and the girls sat down to rest under a tree.
“This must be the old original spreading Chestnut Tree,” said Maisie. “I always wondered if it did really spread such a lot. I see it does.”
“Here comes the spread!” said Grace, as a maid appeared bearing a tray filled with glasses and plates. The contents were sweet cider and ginger cakes, and to the hungry girls they looked very good indeed.
“But we must be getting home,” said Ethel. “I promised Mother we’d be back by five or six, at latest.”
“We can’t go till Uncle Jim sends us,” said Grace. “I told him we wanted to leave at four, but he only said ‘Oh, shucks!’ ”
“Where is he?” asked Dolly. “And isn’t there any Aunt Jim?”
“No, he’s a bachelor. Lives here alone, except for the servants. The truth is, he’s a little shy before a lot of strange girls. Guess I’ll go and hunt him up.”
She ran away to the house, and Ethel explained further: “You see, he’s Mother’s uncle. Quite an old man. And old-fashioned in his ways, except that he has a motor-car and a telephone. But personally, he’s as backwoodsy as Methuselah; but a dear old thing, and awfully kind-hearted.”
Grace came back in triumph, leading Uncle Jim. Pushing and pulling him, rather, for the old man was clearly unwilling to come.
“Now, now, Pussy, whatyer want to drag an old man like me out here fur? These city young misses don’t wanter see me!”
“Yes, we do, Uncle Jim,” called out Ethel, and they all echoed, “Yes, we do, Uncle Jim!”
“Well, well, what a perty lot o’ young misses. And have you all got all the nuts you want?”
“Yes, indeedy!” cried Dolly. “All we can carry, and more too. And we’re ever and ever so much obliged.”
“Not at all, not at all! Ye’re welcome to all and more. It’s a sight to see young things runnin’ around the old place. Why don’t ye bring ’em up oftener, Gracie?”
“Only waiting for an invitation, sir,” and Dotty’s sparkling black eyes laughed into the old face.
“Shucks, now! Well, I hereby invite ye, one and all, to come up here jest whenever ye like, and raise hob.”
“Good!” cried Maisie. “I just love to raise hob! Let’s come next week, girls, when those other nuts are ripe.”
“Do, now jestdo!” said the old man, delightedly. “This old place don’t get sight of chick nor child very often. Must ye be goin’ now? Well, mind now, ye’re to come agin next week. Make a day of it, and bring more of yer young friends. I’ll see to it that Sary makes ye some good old-fashioned doughnuts, and apple turnovers.”
“Look here, Uncle Jim, I’ve an idea,” and Ethel ran to him and laid her hand impressively on his arm.
“Fer the land’s sake, Ethel, ye don’t say so!” and Uncle Jim shook with laughter at his own wit. “A little gell like you with an idea! Sho, sho, now. Come, out with it! It might fester!”
“Now don’t you tease me. But it’s just this. S’pose we come up here on Hallowe’en and have a witch party.”
“My patience! what an idea for a little gell to have! Now, lemme see,—lemme see.”
“No, that’s too much trouble for you, Uncle Jim,” said Grace. “You oughtn’t to have proposed it, Ethel.”
“No, now, wait a minnit, Gracie. Don’t you be too hasty. ’Tain’t no trouble at all, I wasn’t thinkin’ of that. I was thinkin’ if I could make things nice and perty fer you young misses. That’s the trouble. I’m plain, you see, plain, and—”
“Now, that’s just what we want, Uncle Jim, just the plain house, and orchard. We’ll do all the fixing up, ourselves.”
“Now, now, wait a minnit, I tell you. Don’t go so everlastin’ fast. I can’t keep up with you. Here’s the trick. You have your mother come up in the arternoon, and she can help me put things a leetle mite to rights. Then me and Sary and Etty can do the rest.”
“Oh, Mother’ll be glad to come. How about it, girls?”
“Why, we were going to have a Hallowe’en party, ourselves,” said Dotty, smiling as she saw Dolly’s look of consternation.
“I know it; but don’t you think this would be more fun, in the country, you know. Don’t you, Dolly? We won’t do it, if you say not,” and Grace looked embarrassed, “but I thought your party was more like a house-warming for your new playhouse, and so—”
“All right, I say,” and Dotty, turned to Dolly. “Whatcha think, Dollops? Speak out in meetin’! If you don’t want to come up here, say so.”
“I do,” said Dolly, her face clearing. She couldn’t think as rapidly as Dotty, and it took her a minute or two to readjust her plans. “It will be heaps of fun. Are you sure you want us,—Uncle Jim?” The blue eyes looked up into his own, and Uncle Jim said heartily, “You bet I do! Every one here, and a half a dozen more perty young misses, and then boys enough to go round, can you get that many?”
“Oh, yes, we’ll ask all our crowd, and fill up with some of the others. What fun! I’m sure Mother will be pleased, she loves to come up here.”
“All right, Gracie, girl, you talk it over with her, and I’ll be down in a few days, and we’ll see about it.”
“Can we go in the house, Uncle, and see how it is for a party?”
“Sure and sartain! Go right along, the hull pack o’ ye. Browse around, and see the hull shack, and by then, I’ll be ready to send ye home. Go right in the kitchen door. Sary, she’s the cook, ’ll be glad to see you, and Etty, that’s her darter, ’ll show ye round.”
The girls went to the kitchen door, not quite so sure of Sary’s warm welcome as their host was. But they found he was right.
“Well, for the land’s sake! What a delegation! Come in, Miss Grace and Miss Ethel, and bring your friends. Excuse my untidiness. I wasn’t no-ways expecting company.”
The apology was wholly unnecessary, for everything in Sary’s kitchen was spick and span and shining. She was a buxom woman of middle age, and had a broad, smiling face, overflowing with good nature. Her daughter, Etty, was the one who brought them their cakes and cider, and she was shy, but exceedingly curious to see the city ladies,—as the girls seemed to her.
She conducted them all over the fine old farmhouse, and listened in surprise as they exclaimed in wonder and delight over the big open fireplaces, and old mahogany furniture, that seemed to her the most uninteresting and commonplace affairs.
“Perfectly gorgeous!” cried Dotty. “Oh, Grace, I’d ever so much rather have the Hallowe’en party here. Wouldn’t you, old Dollypops?”
“Yes, of course. And we can just as well have any other sort of a party at Treasure House.”
“Course we can. And we will. After this affair is over. I say, girls, let’s have it a masquerade!”
“Oh, let’s!” said Maisie. “I’ve a dress all ready to wear. It’s a witch dress, all—”
“I think we ought all to dress as witches,” interrupted Grace. “Or spooks or hobgoblins or—”
“That’s all right,” put in Dotty, “but the boys won’t do it. They hate dressing up.”
“Let ’em stay away, then.”
“No, a Hallowe’en party without boys is no fun. They make up the tricks and jokes, you know.”
“That’s so,” said Dolly, “but if you tell the boys they can’t come unless they wear spooky rigs, they’ll do it fast enough. Why, a sheet and pillowcase ghost-rig is good enough, and that’s no trouble at all! Don’t you know Dot, we wore them up at Crosstrees last summer, and the boys didn’t mind a bit.”
“Yep, that’s so. Oh, the boys will come. You couldn’t keep them away. What a fireplace to roast chestnuts or pop corn!”
They were in the dining-room now, and its enormous stone fireplace was indeed ideal for a Hallowe’en frolic. And the kitchen, too, offered enchanting possibilities. Then there was the orchard, if any one dared try fortunes beneath the stars. Altogether it was a splendid chance and the Two D’s were glad to lay aside their own half formed plans for these.
On the way home, they talked it over, and as they drew near the Roses’ house the D’s asked the other girls to come in and talk some more.
“I can’t,” said Grace, “I promised Mother, Ethel and I would get home early. It’s a little after five now.”
“Then you come in, Maisie,” said Dolly. “We’ll make fudge. You can stay till six, can’t you?”
“Yes, indeed, and I’m simply starving for fudge.”
CHAPTER VIIIA STRANGE INTRUDER
“Idothink this is the dearest place,” said Maisie, as they went in the door of Treasure House. “I never heard of such a thing before. Whose plan was it?”
“Our two fatherses, mostly,” replied Dotty. “Wait a minute, girls, till I switch on the light.”
In a moment a small side light pierced the gloom, but before she could turn on the larger light, Dotty gave a scream.
“Oh,” she fairly shrieked, “what is that? who is it?”
“Who is what?” cried Dolly following her in, and Maisie came quickly after.
Then they saw what she meant. Somebody or something lay on the floor. Something like a person, but still and unmoving.
“It’s a woman!” screamed Dotty, as she peered down into a veiled white face. “Oh, who can it be? How did she get here?”
Always excitable, Dotty was now fairly beside herself with fear and alarm, and not daring to touch the prostrate figure, she shuddered and fell back against the wall.
“Ican’t look! What is it?” and Dolly clapped her hands over her eyes, and refused to take them down. “See what it is, Maisie, won’t you?”
“No. I don’t see why I—I sh-should, when you and D-D-Dotty won’t,” and Maisie cowered in another corner.
Dolly peeped out from between her fingers. Maisie had fallen in a heap on a window-seat, and was shaking with nervous fear. Dotty was staring at the woman on the floor, but was now showing more curiosity than terror. Dolly glanced at the still form lying there.
“Is she—is she d-dead?” she faltered.
“Ridiculous!” cried Dotty, “of course not. She—she just stepped in here, and—and f-fainted!”
“Oh,” and Dolly became hysterical. “That’s like a f-funny story Father tells, ab-bout the man who called at a house and said, ‘P-please let me have a f-f-fit in your hall’!”
“If he stuttered as much as you do, I guess he had a chill instead of a fit,” giggled Dotty, and then Maisie roused herself.
“Let’s lift her up,” she said; “I’m not afraid. Come and help me.” She took a few steps nearer the woman, and then catching another look at the face she cried, “Oh, I can’t! She looks so queer!”
“Queer, how?” and Dotty’s ever-ready curiosity overcame her repugnance, and she drew near to look in the half-hidden face. “If I dared lift her veil—” she bent over, and drew back instantly. “Oh, girls, her face is cold, stone cold!”
“Then she’s dead!” wailed Dotty. “I told you so! Dead in our pretty house!”
“Well, if the poor lady is dead, she can’t harm us. Let’s lift her up,” and Maisie, with returning courage, put her hand under the mop of grey hair, which was partly hidden beneath a dark felt hat. But again, the strange, eerie sensation of touching an inert form overcame her and pulling her hand away, she ran back to the window-seat. “I can’t! I thought I could, but I can’t. Oh, what shall we do?”
“I s’pose we’ll have to go and get somebody,” said Dolly dolefully. “Shall I go, and you two stay here, or who—”
“Don’t you go and leave me here alone with Maisie!” screamed Dotty. “I won’t let you, Dolly. Maisie, you go and get somebody, and Dolly and I will stay here.”
Maisie started, but on opening the door, and peering out, she flew back, slamming the door hard.
“What is it?” cried both girls. “What did you see?”
“Oh, oh!” and Maisie shivered and shook.
“Tell us, what’s out there? What did you see out there?”
“Oh, n-n-othing. But it’s so dark! I’m afraid to go out. There may be more of them—”
“More people wanting to have a fit in our hall?” said Dotty, who never could fail to see the ridiculous side of anything.
“Don’t, Dot,” implored Dolly. “Don’ttalk like that! Maybe she is d-dead, you know.”
“Maybe? Why, ofcourseshe is! She doesn’t breathe or move at all. Of course she’s dead, Dolly. We’ve got to go and get somebody. Suppose we all go. It’s awful to leave her here alone, but what can we do?”
“Oh, we oughtn’t all to leave her. Maybe she’ll come to.”
“She can’t if she’s dead, can she?”
“Well, wait a minute. You always fly off so quick, Dotty. Let me think. Let’s all sit down here and think a minute.”
Dolly pulled the two girls down beside her on a window-seat. They looked at the silent, motionless form. The woman lay on her side, her hands under her. Her feet in old buttoned shoes stuck out beneath a shabby skirt of dark cloth, frayed at the edges. She wore a big, dark coat of rough cloth. Her hat was held on by a thick veil through which they could quite plainly see her face. She had a very white complexion, but very red cheeks, and staring wide-open blue eyes.
Her grey hair was frowsy and half tumbling down, and round her neck was an old black feather boa. Altogether she looked poorly dressed but her face gave promise of being pretty.
“I’ve got to see her better,” declared Dotty, as Dolly’s cogitation had promised no suggestions. “I’ve just simplygotto! Maisie, will you help lift her head, if I’ll help?”
“Yes, I will,” said Maisie, decidedly; “I won’t flinch this time.”
Dotty went over and knelt at the woman’s side. Maisie knelt at her head. “Now,” said Dotty, “I’ll put my hands under her shoulders and you put yours beneath her head, and we’ll sit her up. Maybe—well,—maybe she isn’t—you know.”
Gently Dotty put her hand under the old cloth coat, carefully Maisie passed her hand again under the grey hair.
“Now!” said Dotty, and as they lifted, the grey hair came off in Maisie’s hand, and—the head of the woman rolled away from the body! All three girls shrieked, and then Dotty began to scream with laughter.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, that naughty little thing! Oh, how could she! Girls, girls, it isn’t a woman, it’s a dummy thing that horrid little Genie fixed up to tease us! She ought to be punished for this! But wewerewell taken in!”
The other two began to realise at last what Dotty meant. Sure enough, the grey hair was a wig, or rather, what is known as a “Transformation.” The head was a plaster cast, nearly life size, and the body of the supposed woman was a small bolster dressed in old clothes. The shoes were merely tucked under the edge of the skirt.
Dotty lifted up the head and pulled off the veil. “It’s my old cast of the head of the Milo Venus,” she said. “See, that little scamp has painted the cheeks and lips red, and the eyes blue, and left the rest white. No wonder she looked pale!”
“And with that veil on, it sure did look like a person,” said Maisie. “Well she had the joke on us, all right! I was scared out of my wits!”
“So was I,” whispered Dolly, who was still shaking; “and I can’t get over it. It was awful!”
“Oh, pooh!” said Dotty, “I was scared too. But I fully expect to get over it! I think we all will! Don’t worry, Doll, a pan of fudge will calm your nerves.”
“Oh, it’s too late to make fudge. I want to go home.”
“Stay right where you are, sister. A few more bright lights, and a fudge-fest will make a new Dolly of you.”
As she talked, Dotty was switching on lights all over the house, getting out chocolate and the chafing-dish, and, making signs to Maisie to perk up and be gay.
Maisie took the hint, and in a short time, there was excellent fudge ready for three merrily laughing girls.
Dotty felt the responsibility of the thing, for it was her sister who was the culprit. She recognised the cast and also the clothing and the wig, and she knew it could have been no one else but the mischievous Genie. So she did all she could to remove the shadow of unpleasantness that hung round the performance, and she succeeded admirably.
Naturally, the talk turned to the Hallowe’en party.
“I suppose Grace and Ethel will make out the list of invitations,” said Dotty.
“It won’t take much making out,” was Maisie’s idea. “They’ll just ask our crowd and that will be about enough. Us five who were there to-day, and Celia, and six boys, will be twelve. That’s plenty.”
“I wish she’d ask Bernice Forbes,” said Dolly, doubtfully, “but I s’pose she won’t.”
“I s’pose she won’t, too,” said Dot. “Pooh, who wants Bernice Forbes?”
“I don’t, for one,” asserted Maisie. “I can’t bear the girl.”
“I don’t see why,” argued Dolly. “She would be all right if people would be nice to her.”
“All right? Shecan’tbe all right,” and Dotty shook her head. “She don’t knowhowto be all right.”
“That’s so,” and Maisie laughed. “Well, I must go home, girls. I’ve had a lovely fudge party, and I think Genie’s joke was a great success. Tell her so, for me, Dotty.”
“All right, I will,” and with laughing good-byes, Maisie went home and the Two D’s stayed to put things straight. It was their rule never to leave Treasure House untidy over night. Dotty whistled and Dolly sang, as they flew around and soon had things ship-shape.
“Now, Dot,” said Dolly, as they poked out the dying embers of the fire, “I want to tell you something. I’m going to ask Grace to ask Bernice to that party.”
“No, you’re not, Dollyrinda. You think so now, but you go home and think it over, and you’ll see that you’ll spoil the whole party if you do.”
“You mean spoil it foryou! It won’t for anybody else. Not everybody is as mean as you are to that girl!”
“Nobody likes her, you’ve often said so yourself.”
“All the more reason, then, to have her there and let them learn to like her.”
“Oh, good gracious! you make me tired! Why are you so everlastingly gone on her? Just because she’s rich?”
“Dotty Rose, you take that back! That’s a mean thing to say, and youknowit isn’t true.Don’tyou?”
“Well, I never knew you to care for anybody for that reason before; but I can’t think of any other.”
“Well, thatisn’tthe reason, and you know it perfectly well. Now, I’ll tell you what the reason is, if you can understand it, and I don’t know as you can. It’s because I’m sorry for her. Everybody snubs her, and she’d just love to be liked and sought after.”
“Oh, shewould, would she? Then why doesn’t she make herself liked and sought after?”
“How can she, if we don’t give her a chance?”
“Let her make her own chance.”
“But, she can’t, Dotty. If no one invites her anywhere, how can she make herself agreeable and pleasant to them?”
“Let her give a party herself, and invite us.”
“I’ve no doubt she’d be glad to, if she thought we’d go to it. But if we snub her right and left, she won’t dare ask us.”
“Well, let her be more pleasant at school, then. She’s stuck-up and proudy, and she thinks she’s the whole world. Oh, let up, Dolly! what do you want to bother with her for? There are enough in our crowd already. And we just plain don’t want her.”
“Dot, you’re horrid. Can’t you feel sorry for her? Put yourself in her place. How would you feel if everybody turned the cold shoulder to you?”
“I’d be so gay and merry they’dhaveto like me.”
“Oh, that’s all very well, because everybodydoeslike you. But if they snubbed you, what then?”
“Why, Dollops, if I deserved it, I’d have to grin and bear it, I ’spect. But facts is facts. You can’t make Bernie Forbes over, and unless you can, you can’t make people like her, and that’s all there is about it. And another thing, Doll. I know and you know your high and noble aim in this matter, but the others don’t, and wouldn’t believe it if they did. You go on like this, and people will soon be saying that you’re toadying to Bernice Forbes just because she’s the richest girl in town. And you’ll see what they’ll think of that!”
“Pooh, I don’t care if they do. Bernice hasn’t any mother, and her father is a stern, grumpy old thing, and Iamsorry for her, and Iamgoing to do anything I can to help her have a good time, and Iamgoing to coax Grace Rawlins to ask her to the Hallowe’en party! So there, now, Miss Dorothy Rose, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
When Dolly was in earnest, she was very much so, and Dotty well knew there was no use combating her in this mood. So she changed her tactics, and said, laughingly, “Well, don’t letusquarrel about it anyway. And it’s time to go home now. Come on.”
“No, I won’t come on, till you say you’ll help me in my plan. If you and I both ask Grace to ask Bernie, she’ll do it. But if I ask her, and then you go to her, and ask hernotto, shewon’tdo it. And I know that’sjustwhat you’ll do!”
As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Dottyhadintended to do. In fact, she had already planned in her quick-working mind, to telephone the moment she got home, to Grace, and ask hernotto consent to Dolly’s request. It wasn’t that Dotty had such rooted objections to Bernice, but shewasunattractive and stiff, and, moreover, exceedingly critical. And too, Dotty didn’t care so especially about the party, but she didn’t want Bernice included in the six girls who made up “their crowd,” and if Dolly took her up so desperately, first thing they knew, she would be in the “crowd” and she would be all the time coming to Treasure House, and—here was the rub,—Dotty feared, way down deep in her inmost heart, that Bernice might cut her out with Dolly, and that would be the crowning tragedy! It was scarcely possible, of course, but Dolly took strange notions sometimes, and Dotty was taking no chances on such a catastrophe.
“All right, I’ll promise not to say anything to Grace at all, about it. But I won’t promise to coax her to ask Bernice, for I don’t want her to. Aw, Dollyrinda, let up on that crazy scheme. It’s only a whim. And don’t you see, if you get her asked there, and shedoesn’thave a good time, she’ll wish she hadn’t come after all. And so you’ll be giving her a disappointment instead of a pleasure.”
“But she would have a good time. I’d see that she did.”
“Yes, you would! And how? Why, you’d ask the boys to be nice to her, and dance with her and everything. And—would they do it? They wouldnot!Didthey do it, when you asked them at the High School Dance? They didnot!”
“How do you know?”
“Lollie told me. He said it was ducky of you to try to be so nice to her, but it wouldn’t go down. The boys just simply plain won’t,—and you know it.”
“Isn’t it mean of them, Dot? Don’t you think it is?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I keep telling you, Dolly, if Bernice was nice to people, you wouldn’t have to try to boost her. And if she isn’t, boosting won’t do any good. There’s the whole thing in a nutshell. Now wemustgo home, or they’ll be sending over after us.”
“Yes, I s’pose we must. Well, Dot, I’ll see about this thing. I’ve got to think it over.”
“All right, old slowpoke thinker! And say, Dollops, you aren’t mad at what Genie did, are you?”
“Oh, goodness no. You know I don’t like practical jokes much; you know how I hated that one they played on Miss Partland, but I’m not mad at Genie, of course not.”
“Good for you. But I’ll see that she isn’t allowed to do such a thing again.”