“You shall travel many a landSeeing wonders great and grand.But for home your heart will yearn,Back to Berwick you’ll return!”
“You shall travel many a landSeeing wonders great and grand.But for home your heart will yearn,Back to Berwick you’ll return!”
“You shall travel many a landSeeing wonders great and grand.But for home your heart will yearn,Back to Berwick you’ll return!”
“You shall travel many a land
Seeing wonders great and grand.
But for home your heart will yearn,
Back to Berwick you’ll return!”
“Indeed I will,” said Ethel; “I’m the homesickest thing ever, if I’m away from mother.”
“Ned Hillman,” announced Dolly, who was holding the tongs again. “Read it, Mr. Rawlins.”
“Your Fate has not tarried,Your Future is bright;And you will be marriedTwo years from to-night!
“Your Fate has not tarried,Your Future is bright;And you will be marriedTwo years from to-night!
“Your Fate has not tarried,Your Future is bright;And you will be marriedTwo years from to-night!
“Your Fate has not tarried,
Your Future is bright;
And you will be married
Two years from to-night!
Well, well, Ned, so your bachelor days are numbered. Make the most of your freedom before you settle down to housekeeping.”
“All right, Mr. Rawlins,” said Ned. “But I’ll have to hustle to get a house to keep, in two years! Couldn’t old Fire Spirit give me a little more time?”
“He might extend it, in case of good behaviour. What, Celia Ferris is next? Here you are, Celia:
“Though you are a pretty creature,You are doomed to be a Teacher,For a year or two. And then,You will wed the best of men.
“Though you are a pretty creature,You are doomed to be a Teacher,For a year or two. And then,You will wed the best of men.
“Though you are a pretty creature,You are doomed to be a Teacher,For a year or two. And then,You will wed the best of men.
“Though you are a pretty creature,
You are doomed to be a Teacher,
For a year or two. And then,
You will wed the best of men.
H’m, seems to me Ned and Celia will step off at about the same time!”
This caused great hilarity, for Ned’s admiration for the pretty Celia was not altogether a secret. Celia blushed, but did not look at all offended.
“Huh!” said Joe Collins, “no fun teasing those two! They like it!”
“Idon’t!” cried Celia, blushing, and then they all laughed harder.
“And beside,” went on Joe, “it said Celia would wed the best of men. Now, though we all love our Neddie, we can’t pedestal him as thebestof men, can we? Or, can we?”
“We can! we can!” they all shouted in rollicking chorus.
“And now for the last fortune; may it prove the best,” said Mr. Rawlins, holding up the last paper.
“Must be mine,” said Reggie Stuart. “I haven’t had any yet.”
It was his, and it said:
You never will have wealth,You’ll keep no powdered flunkey;But you’ll travel, for your health,With a hand-organ and monkey!
You never will have wealth,You’ll keep no powdered flunkey;But you’ll travel, for your health,With a hand-organ and monkey!
You never will have wealth,You’ll keep no powdered flunkey;But you’ll travel, for your health,With a hand-organ and monkey!
You never will have wealth,
You’ll keep no powdered flunkey;
But you’ll travel, for your health,
With a hand-organ and monkey!
“Fine!” and Reggie laughed with the rest of them. “I’m awfully fond of music, and I couldn’t have chosen a better fortune myself. Think of wandering about in the Spring—”
“With a monkey on a string!” chimed in Joe.
“Flowers a-bloom and birds a-wing,” from Tad.
“Catching coin like anything!” wound up Reggie. “Oh, it’s a great life! I always envied the hand-organ man.”
The fortunes over, Dolly begged Mr. Rawlins to tell how the Fire Spirit was induced to write on the blank papers.
“I have a contract with the Spirit,” he declared, “and if I order him, he will write for me. No one else can command him.”
“Oh, now, I dunno ’bout that,” drawled Uncle Jim, who had been an eager-eyed spectator of the fortune telling, though he had said little. “S’pose, now, Dolly, you hold up this here piece of blank paper an’ see if the Sperrit won’t write on it.”
Dolly took the sheet of paper offered her, and put it in the tongs. Slowly some writing appeared. It said: “Mr. Rawlins is fooling you. Make him tell, (signed, The Fire Spirit.)”
“I thought so,” cried Dolly, and going to him, she said, coaxingly: “Now, Mr. Rawlins, you must tell us. The Fire Spirit commands you.”
“Then I shall have to, of course,” and Mr. Rawlins laughed good-naturedly. “Well, since you will have the veil torn from the mystery, I’ll own up. The way to produce that writing is simply to write it on the papers beforehand, with milk—”
“With milk!”
“Yes, use a small paint brush dipped in milk. Write your message, let it dry, and then when it is held to the fire the heat turns the milk brown and the writing appears. But, when I let Uncle Jim into my secret, I didn’t know he would turn it against myself.”
“You would have told us, anyway,” and Dolly nodded her head at him. “But it’s a good trick. Does it always work?”
“Yes, if you do it properly. It’s well to go over the milk letters a second time, while they are wet enough to see. Then the heat scorches them better. Also, have a care not to let the papers be handled or blurred before using.”
“Thank you, that’s a fine thing to know,” and Dolly tucked it away in her noddle for future use. She already saw herself mystifying Bert and Bob when they came home.
“Great, isn’t it, Dot?” she cried, her first thought, as always, to share every idea with Dotty.
But again, Dotty gave her the cold shoulder. She heard, but, pretending not to, she turned to Celia and chattered quickly.
Dolly gave her a hurt look, and then, as Dotty glanced at her without a responding smile, Dolly went deliberately across the room to where Bernice stood, alone and neglected.
Dolly was in defiant mood. She was full of wrath at Dotty’s attitude, and she was angry, too, at the boys, because they would not be nice to Bernice.
“Hello, Bernie,” she said. “How’d you like your fortune?”
“I don’t like anything,” returned Bernice, her eyes stormy with discontent. “I want to go home.”
“We’re all going,” said Dolly, “after one dance. Uncle Jim wants to see us do a Virginia Reel, and Mrs. Rawlins is going to play for us. Come on.”
“Nobody will ask me to dance. I want to go home.”
Just then, Tad came up to Dolly and asked her to dance with him.
“Not unless you find a partner for Bernice,” said Dolly. She spoke in a low tone, and they turned away, so Bernice did not hear. But she imagined what they were saying, and it did not tend to make her happier.
“Can’t do it,” said Tad, positively. “Nobody will dance with that lemon! Why, look at her, Doll! She’s a human thunder-cloud. Who’d dance with that?”
“Then I’ll dance with her, myself. I’d rather do that, than have her left out.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks! Leave her alone, and let’s get our places. You can’t scare me, saying you’ll dance with her! No, sir, not little Dolly Fayre. She’s going to trip it with yours truly, and that’s all there is about that!”
Then Dolly had an inspiration. “Wait a minute,” she said to Tad, and she ran over to where Uncle Jim was smiling at his guests.
“Aren’t you going to dance, Uncle Jim?” she said.
“Well, now, I hadn’t thought on’t. But it’s right down nice of you to ask me. I’d like to,—by gum, I’d like to! But which of all these perty young misses would dance with me? I ask you that?”
“Why, any of them would be proud to dance with the host. I would myself, only I’m engaged for it. But how do you like the Elf?”
“That perty one in green? I’d like her mighty well, if she’d honor me.”
“Let’s go and ask her,” and Dolly led the old man across to Bernice. “Say, Bernie, you’re the belle of the ball! Uncle Jim wants you to dance the Reel with him.”
“That I do, if you would give me the honor,” and Uncle Jim made an old-fashioned bow, of deference and respect. He had the grace of an old-time beau, and it appealed to Bernice’s pride to be chosen by the host of the evening.
“Thank you,” she said, a little shyly, and took the arm of the old man, as they found places in the line.
Dolly was beaming at her success. “It’s all right, no thanks to you,” she said to Tad, as she returned to him.
“You’re a hummer, Dolly, and no mistake! That was a first-rate scheme. You couldn’t have made any of the boys take her.”
“I know it,” and Dolly sighed. Then she changed the subject, for she had no wish to discuss Bernice further just then.
As it turned out, Uncle Jim was a fine dancer, and he cut pigeon wings and made old-fashioned bows, with his hand on his heart. Bernice, also a good dancer, entered into the spirit of the quaint dance, and they were by far the most effective couple on the floor.
As a grand finale, Uncle Jim balanced up and down the line with Bernice in gay whirls, and then fairly swung her off her feet, in a wild pirouette.
“Good!” cried Mr. Rawlins, clapping his hands. “Didn’t know you were such a gay young buck, Uncle Jim! You’ll have to come to dancing class and teach the youngsters the real thing!”
Flushed and smiling, Bernice said good-night to her host and partner, and ran away to the cloakroom.
“You were splendid, Bernie,” said Dolly, as she put on her wrap. “Wasn’t she, Dot?”
“Yes,” said Dotty, coldly. “But I don’t care for such boisterous dancing myself.”
“Oh, you don’t!” said Dolly, mad clear through. “Well, keep your preferences and opinions to yourself!” She turned her back on Dotty, and adjusted her scarf before the mirror. Her pink cheeks were scarlet, and her blue eyes flashed with indignation. It was the injustice of Dotty’s attitude that hurt her. She had only tried to give Bernice a good time, and she couldn’t see why that should make Dot so horribly snippy.
Then she heard exclamations and shouts out in the hall, and hurried out to see what it meant.
At first she thought the house was on fire. A red glow showed through the windows and from the open door. Then she discovered that it was a glow of red fire in honour of the occasion. Uncle Jim had arranged it to give them a gay and pleasant send-off. There were fires burning in all directions, and the effect was a general red glow as bright as day.
“How beautiful!” cried everybody, for the scene was like fairyland. And then they all thanked Uncle Jim over and over for the party, and for his kindness and thoughtfulness, and the motors came, and the young people were packed in and sent rolling homeward.
Dolly was a little silent, for she was deeply hurt at Dotty’s manner, and had to think things over before she decided what to do about it all.
Dotty, on the other hand, was unusually gay. She proposed singing songs, and herself started the tunes. She laughed and chattered with everybody else, but said no word to Dolly.
When they reached their respective homes, the girls went into their houses without a parting word of good-night to each other.
CHAPTER XIIMAD AND MEASLES
Thenext day was Saturday, and the Two D’s had planned to spend the morning at Treasure House, studying first, and afterward arranging for a luncheon they were going to have there the next Saturday.
They intended to ask four girls and have a lovely party, but now the very thought of it brought the tears to Dolly’s eyes. She was in her room, wondering whether to go over to Treasure House or to wait for some word from Dotty. They had never had a real quarrel before and Dolly didn’t know quite how to manage it. So she watched from her window to see if Dot would go over. And Dotty did. Soon Dolly saw her walking along the path, her head up, singing a little song, and then she unlocked the door of Treasure House and went in.
So Dolly followed, and went in to find that Dotty had started a good fire, and was sitting at her desk, studying.
Dolly looked at Dotty and Dotty looked at Dolly, but neither spoke. Dolly thought Dotty looked spiteful and Dotty thought Dolly looked stubborn. And they both did look so, and they felt so.
Dolly threw off her coat, laid another log on the blazing fire, and sat down at her desk to study.
Silence reigned and reigned with such absolute monarchy that each girl felt as if she should scream. Perhaps you know the tension of such a situation. Both sat still, until arms and legs felt rigid, faces were strained, and hearts beat as if they would burst. Yet, neither felt she could speak. That would be a humiliating admission of being in the wrong, which neither was willing to make.
Turned slightly away from each other, they were not mutually visible, yet each felt that the other knew every move she made.
Dolly was almost ready to cry, her neck felt so stiff and her arm so cramped. She moved a trifle, and the sensation was as if she had made a disturbance in church. She at once became motionless again, her burning face showing her embarrassed self-consciousness.
Dotty of sterner stuff sat stiffly still, now and then turning a page of her book with utmost deliberation. Then her foot went to sleep, and she wanted to get up and dance on it. Of course, there was no reason why she shouldn’t dance on it to her heart’s content, but if you are acquainted with the peculiar etiquette of “getting mad,” you know she would have endured torture before she would have done anything that could have been construed as sociable.
So the two silly things sat there, each trying to study, pretending to study, and really wondering what the other was thinking.
At last the burned out fire required mending. With a furtive glance at Dotty, Dolly got up, sauntered to the wood-box, selected a log with care, and laid it carefully on the embers of the expiring ones glowing among the ashes.
Dotty jumped up, glad of a chance to step on her sleeping foot, and seizing the poker, jammed Dolly’s log into place so fiercely that it fell down between the andirons.
“I’ll ’tend to the fire,” said Dolly, coldly, for a speech of this sort was entirely permissible.
“You think you know all about fire-making, don’t you? Well, that big log will never burn without a stick of kindling-wood.”
“It would, if you’d let it alone. You always poke a fire till you put it out!”
“I don’t either! I had the fire all right, till you came over and bothered with it.”
“Well, then, fix it yourself, smarty, if you know so much!”
Dolly flounced back to her chair and sat down. Usually gentle, and even-tempered, when Dolly did get stirred up, she was so miserable, all through, that she couldn’t control herself. And now, she knew that if she staid there with Dotty, in those strained relations, she would very shortly burst into uncontrollable tears.
Dotty slammed another log on top of the first one, took the hearth brush and flirted the ashes about a little, took the tongs, and fussed about with those, and then, adjusting the fender with meticulous care, went back to her seat, and again silence took up its sceptre.
The very light-ticking clock could be plainly heard, indeed it sounded as loud as the click of a typewriter in the gloomy atmosphere. The girls turned farther away from each other until they were fairly back to back.
Dolly was all the time growing more and more inclined to tears; not tears of sorrow, so much as of indignation, of weariness and of general nerve strain.
Dotty, tearless, with no inclination to cry, became more and more ruffled with anger at Dolly, and a vague half-recognised jealousy of Bernice; as well as a sort of remorse at her own unkindness to her chum.
But what could be done? Girls who are “mad at” each other can not violate the age-old canons of not speaking, and to speak first was the deepest humiliation.
So the two little ninnies sat there. Dotty’s feet went to sleep, one after the other. Dolly’s arms stiffened and relaxed in turn. The minutes dragged by like hours. Lessons were not learned, for how can one put one’s mind on the Ptolemies or their successors, when one is mad at one’s friend?
At last, somehow, the motionless hour-hand of the hammering clock managed to worm its way to twelve, a permissible, if not usual, hour to go home.
Simultaneously, and with the same air of preoccupied intentness, both girls put away books and papers, and pulled on her coat sleeves.
Dolly dawdled over her desk a moment, hoping Dotty would speak. Dotty looked at the back of Dolly’s head, decided it still looked stubborn, and turned away.
Together, yet miles apart, they went out of the door. Dotty locked it with her key, she was always the quicker one at that, and then, with an assumed lightness of step, the two silly young things ran across their respective lawns and into their respective homes.
Merry and bright they were at their respective luncheon tables, for the unwritten law required that their parents must not know of the tragedy that had befallen.
So, when Mrs. Fayre informed Dolly that her company was desired for a ride that afternoon, the consent was prompt and willing. And when Mrs. Rose asked Dotty to stay with Genie while she went out on some errands, there was no objection raised.
But there were two sore and sorry hearts in the neighbouring houses, and two brains pondered over the question of what was best to do.
Dolly was unwilling to give up her pet plan of helping Bernice. She couldn’t explain entirely to her own satisfaction, just why she was so interested in this project, but she knew she had no unworthy motive. It was not,—of that she was sure,—because Bernie was rich and lived in the grandest house in Berwick. It was not because she wanted her for her own particular friend. But it seemed too bad that a nice girl like that should be out of everything for lack of a guiding hand. And, it must be admitted, Dolly liked to play the part of guiding hand.
Dotty, for her part, was mad because Dolly had gone off and asked the girls to invite Bernice to their party, after she had practically agreed not to. This was Dolly’s sole argument. The fact of her own jealousy of Dolly’s interest in Bernice she ignored, for the present, at least.
So the two foolish ones spent much of the golden Autumn afternoon ruffling the feathers of their souls, and persistently keeping them ruffled.
That evening, as the Fayres sat at dinner, the telephone rang, and Mrs. Fayre was asked for.
After a time she returned to the table.
“Here’s a state of things,” she said, smiling, yet looking serious too. “It was Mrs. Rose telephoning. Genie has the measles, or rather, they think she has, and so Mrs. Rose asks if we’ll let Dotty come here to stay till they’re over.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Fayre, “that’s too bad for poor little Genie. But I rather think I can guess the names of Two D’s who won’t be sorry about the projected visit. Eh, Dollykins?”
Dolly was stricken dumb. Dotty coming for a week, maybe more,—how long did measles last, anyway? Was it a month? Could they go without speaking all that time?
“How—how long will she be here, Mother?” at last a small, scared voice said.
“A couple of weeks, I daresay. Why,—aren’t you glad? I thought you’d be overjoyed. Not at Genie’s illness, but at Dotty’s coming.”
“Did—did you tell her she could come, Mother?”
“Surely, child. Won’t you have the good times, though!”
“She can have the pink guest room,” said Trudy, kindly. “That’s almost next to Doll’s room, and they can chum all they like. Hasn’t Dotty been exposed, Mother?”
“Yes, but she has had measles, so she’s immune. But she can’t go to school if she remains in the house where the illness is. So she’s to come here.”
“When?” asked Dolly, in a queer, far-away voice.
“Now; right away,” replied her mother. “We’ll put aside that best lace bed-set, Trudy, and give her a plainer one.”
“Of course. I’ll fix the room, Mother, you needn’t give it a thought.”
“You’re a great help, Trude,” said Mrs. Fayre, smiling at her elder daughter.
Meantime the younger daughter of the house of Fayre was struggling with her emotions. She didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad.
And before she had time to decide, Dotty arrived.
“Isn’t this great?” she exclaimed in a state of excitement. “It’s awful kind of you, Mrs. Fayre, to take me in, but you see, I’d hate so to be out of school just now. It’s near examinations, and I do want to pass.”
“We’ll pass you,” said Mr. Fayre. “We’ll put you through, with bells on! But I expect you Two D’s will chatter and giggle all the time instead of studying.”
“Oh, no, we won’t,” and from the cold smile Dotty flashed at her, Dolly understood the feud was as desperate as ever, but the elders were to be kept in ignorance of it. For a feud suspected by parents is as good as finished. No real feud can exist in the scathing beams of grown people’s ridicule.
So Dolly smiled coldly in return, and said, “No, indeed,” in a tone that ought not to have deceived a feeble-minded jellyfish.
Nor did it deceive Trudy. “Something’s up,” she thought, but wisely kept her thoughts to herself.
Later, when the girls went to bed, they parted at their doorways in the hall.
“Good night, Dollyrinda,” said Dotty, heartily, in a voice loud enough to be heard down-stairs, if any one chanced to be listening. “I’m fearfully tired, so I’ll go right to bed.”
“Good night, Dotsie,” returned the other guileful one. “You must be tired, with the worry about Genie, and all. Good night.”
The door shut and there was silence as far as the Two D’s were concerned.
“What can it be?” thought Trudy, who had heard the high-pitched conversation. But she bided her time to find out.
The next day was a trial. Being Sunday, the whole family was much together. The Two D’s were at their wit’s end to preserve an apparent friendliness, without showing each other any real diminution of their desperate hatred of one another. Trudy eyed them, when she could do so unobserved, and concluded that they were “mad at” each other. “Silly little geese!” she thought, well remembering her own not so far past schooldays.
She determined to give them every chance.
“Going over to Treasure House?” she inquired, soon after dinner.
“Dunno. Do you want to go, Dot?” said Dolly, with studied carelessness.
“Oh, I don’t care, Dolly. Just as you like,” and Dotty’s politeness was faultless.
“Of course you do,” said Mr. Fayre, looking up from his paper. “What did I build that house for if you’re not to use it?”
“Shall we go, Dot?”
“Yes, if you like.”
Dolly did not like, at all, but Mr. Fayre spoke up again. “Run along over, kiddies, and after a while, I’ll saunter over myself. I haven’t been there for a week, and I like to keep in touch with it.”
“All right, Dad. Come on, Dotty.”
The two girls went across the lawn, side by side.
“Wonder how Genie is,” said Dolly, with the laudable intention of “making talk.”
“She isn’t sick, you know,” returned Dotty, courteously. “The doctor isn’t sure it really is measles. But he’ll know in a day or two.”
They went into Treasure House. Something about the look of the place got on Dolly’s nerves. The lovely house, the dear furniture, the beautiful treasures, and then—the two owners acting like a pair of silly idiots,—it was too much! But, whereas yesterday, she had felt sad and distressed, the long trying hours had made her irritable and angry, and as the door closed behind them, she burst out, “I think you’re perfectlyhorrid, Dotty Rose!”
“So do I thinkyouare, Dolly Fayre!”
“Theideaof being mad at me, just because I want to do a deed of kindness for a friend!”
“Sheisn’tyour friend.”
“Why, of course she’s my friend—”
“You hardly know her!”
“You don’t have to know people such an awful lot to be friends with them,—not if they’re nice people.”
“Huh! I s’pose I’m not nice people, then. You’re not very friendly with me!”
“Neither are you with me!”
“You know why.”
“So do you know why.”
“I don’t know why, and I don’t care why. If you want old Bernice Forbes for your friend instead of me, you can have her, I don’t care!”
“I don’t want her instead of you—”
“You do so! You like her because she’s—”
“You stop that, Dotty Rose! Don’t you dare say that! I’ll like her if I want to,—so there now, and you can think whatever you please! I don’t carewhatyou think!”
A step on the porch sounded, and the angry combatants, ashamed to be caught quarrelling, ran back to the dining-room.
“Where are you, ladies of the house?” called out Mr. Fayre, as he and Mrs. Fayre stepped into the study.
“All right, be there in a minute,” called Dotty in a cheery voice, as she mopped her heated brow with her handkerchief, and straightened her rumpled collar.
And in a moment, two normally serene girls came in the room to receive their guests.
“What were you talking about as we came up the steps?” asked Mrs. Fayre, in idle curiosity; “you were speaking so loudly and excitedly.”
“We were—” began Dolly, and stopped. She was a truthful child, and since she didn’t want to state the facts, she preferred to say nothing. Dotty too, began to speak and stopped.
“Never mind, Mother,” said Mr. Fayre, laughing, “let the girls have their little secrets.”
CHAPTER XIIITHE FEAST THAT FAILED
Thatnight the Two D’s put off going to bed as long as possible, and when, at last, Mrs. Fayre sent them away, laughingly, they marched up-stairs like two deaf and dumb Drum Majors.
“What’s the matter with the kiddies?” asked Mr. Fayre, who couldn’t help noticing their demeanour.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” returned his wife. But Trudy laughed outright, and said:
“I do. They’re mad.”
“Mad?”
“Yes. A school girl ‘mad,’ you know. Neither will speak first—it’s beneath her dignity. They’ll act like this a day or two longer, and then they’ll make up. I know ’em!”
“Better speak to them, Mother,” suggested Mr. Fayre, “and clear up matters. Seems silly to me.”
“Oh, I don’t believe I’d better interfere. They’ll fix it up themselves, if that’s what’s the matter. Some foolish quarrel, I suppose.”
“It isn’t like them. They rarely quarrel.” Trudy looked thoughtful. “But I’m sure it is that. They never spoke to each other at supper, though each was gay and chatty with the rest of us.”
“Silly babies!” said Mr. Fayre, smiling. “Let them work it out themselves, then.”
Meanwhile the “silly babies” were tossing on restless pillows. In adjoining rooms, Dolly and Dotty were thinking hard, though in different moods. Dotty was tumbling about the bed, throwing her arms out and digging her face in her pillow, in the intensity of her warring emotions.
Dolly was lying quiet and straight, her eyes turned toward the ceiling, her heart throbbing, as she “thought it out.”
Both rooms were flooded with moonlight, and the two girls stayed awake far into the night.
At last, about one o’clock, Dolly finished her cogitations. Deliberately, she rose and put on her dressing-gown and slippers. She went to Dotty’s room, opened the door softly and walked in. Then she closed the door behind her, and going to the bedside, said:
“You awake, Dots?”
“Yep,” came the surprised voice from the rumpled coverlets.
“Well, sit up here, then. I’ve come to talk.”
“Isn’t—isn’t it late?” and Dotty sat up, a little uncertain what attitude to assume.
“Of course it’s late. But I’ve got to have this thing out. I can’t go on this way.”
“Nor I either, Doll!” and Dotty leaned forward and threw her arms around Dolly’s neck in a convulsive hug that nearly strangled her. “Aren’t we the silly geese to—”
“Now, you wait, Dotty Rose. After I say what I’ve come to say, you may not want—”
“Yes, I will, Dolly! I don’t carewhatyou’re going to say. You may jump on me all you like,—Iwasa pig, but I’m sorry, and—”
“I’m sorry, too! You shan’t be sorry before I am!”
“But I have to, Doll! You know I’m alwayseverythingbefore you are. I’m quicker-jointed, or something. But never mind that, I’ve got you back, you dear old thing, and now you can go ahead and scold me, all you want to. Oh, Doll, hasn’t it been horrid?”
“Hasn’tit! Well, as we’re all right again, let’s have this Bernice business out once and for all. If you say so, Dotty, I’ll give up trying to make her more popular. I’ve thought it all out, and it’s this way. You’re my best friend, and I want you to be, and if it bothers you so to have me friendly with her,—why, I won’t be, that’s all.”
“Oh, Dollyrinda, how sweet you are! You make me feel like an awful pig. But you see,—well, I s’pose I was jealous. I thought you’d like Bernice more and more, till you liked her better’n everybody and better’n me. And I just couldn’t stand it!”
“Why, Dorothy Rose! The idea of your thinkingthat!” and Dolly clasped the tousled black head to her breast and kissed the tear-wet cheeks. “We’re special friends, nobody could come betweenus! They’d just better try it!”
“Then that’s all right!” and Dotty’s quick-working mentality jumped to a happy conclusion of their troubles. “Now, look here, Doll, you don’t have to throw Bernice over entirely.”
“I will, if you want me to.”
“But I don’t want you to. Your idea of making her one of our set is all right, now that I knowwe’reall right. And I’ll help you.”
“Will you? Oh, Dot, then we can do it. We’ll have to plan it—”
“Oh, of course! You’d have to plan, if it was only to eat your dinner!” and Dotty affectionately pulled the golden curls. “And say, old Dollypops, we haven’t planned much for our luncheon next Saturday.”
“Couldn’t very well, when we were mad. Oh, Dot, wasn’t it horrid in the house yesterday morning?”
“Horrid all the time. Hasn’t to-day been awful?”
“Yep. But it was funny you had to come over here to stay just now.”
“Awful funny. Now about Saturday—”
“No, sir! Notnowabout Saturday. Do you know what time it is?”
“Nixy; and I don’t care.”
“Well, I do. It’s ’most two o’clock, and Mother will give us Jesse to-morrow if she hears us talking so long. So you go by-by, and I will too, and we’ll plan by daylight. Good night, old girl.”
“Good night, Dollums, and I am sorry I was horrid.”
“So’m I, that I was.”
And peace being declared and ratified, the Two D’s went to sleep so successfully that they were late to breakfast.
“The country’s safe,” remarked Trudy, after the pair had started for school.
“How do you know?” asked her mother.
“Signs. Lots of ’em. They talkedtoeach other, notateach other. And they smiled and sang, and were generally in fine spirits.”
“Well, I’m glad of it. I hate to have them so childish and silly.”
“I ’spect all girls are. They’ll outgrow it. And they are two such sensible, nice, little girl chums, that I don’t believe it will happen often.”
Nor did it. In all their lives, Dotty and Dolly never again had one of those foolish “mads” that most school girls know so well.
They had differences of opinion frequently, very frequently; and often they had hot, hasty words; but the quarrels were of short duration, and ended amicably and lovingly.
The Saturday luncheon was duly planned. They invited Maisie, the two Rawlins girls and Celia. Dolly would have liked to ask Bernice and Dotty was more than willing, but they had only room for six,—and too, they knew all the girls would like it better without the stranger, and so for this time they decided against her, agreeing that they would invite her some time soon.
It was to be a very festal occasion. More, the whole luncheon was to be the work of the two girls themselves. Not everything was to be made in Treasure House, but no one save the Two D’s could have a hand in the preparations.
And so, when Saturday morning came, they were up bright and early to begin their work. Dotty was still at the Fayres’; Genie, though better was still housed, and the time was not yet up when Dotty could return home.
“It doesn’t seem fair, Doll,” said Dotty as, swathed in big aprons, they went into the Fayre kitchen, “for me to work over here. We’ve always divided the work before.”
“That doesn’t matter. What do you want for the cake?”
“A big bowl and a spoon. I’ll measure out the things myself.”
“All right, and I’ll make the salad dressing now.”
Two busy bees worked all the morning, barely having time to set the table in Treasure House and arrange some flowers there before their guests came.
“Goodness, there they are!” cried Dotty, as she set a saucepan of lard on their kitchenette stove to heat. “I can’t leave this, Doll, so you go in and do the polite, and I’ll run in when I can. They won’t mind.”
So Dolly, serene and smiling, met the girls, who all came together.
“What a jolly lark!” exclaimed Maisie; “the idea of you two girls having a lunch party!”
“And cooking everything ourselves,” added Dolly. “Dot’s in the kitchen yet, struggling with foods. Take off your things.”
The guests complied, keeping up a perfect stream of chatter as they looked about and admired everything in sight.
All had been there before, but not to a regular invited feast, and the occasion was a great one.
“If I had a house like this,” declared Ethel Rawlins, “I wouldn’t ask any more favours of Fate for twenty years!”
“Nor I,” agreed Celia. “Isn’t it wonderful! Don’t you just adore it, Dolly?”
“Indeed we do—yes, all right!” This last in answer to a frantic call from Dotty, in the kitchenette. “Excuse me, girls, Dot’s come to grief, somehow. Amuse yourselves till I come back.”
Dolly hurried to the rescue, and found Dotty throwing dish-towels into the croquette kettle.
“The old thing caught fire somehow!” she exclaimed, dancing about, “and, I never thought of it before, but, Dolly, do you think the house is insured?”
“Goodness, I don’t know! But never mind that, now; it isn’t going to burn down. Can we save the croquettes, or what shall we have for lunch?”
Gingerly with a fork they picked up the towels, and found a number of black, dried-up cylinders that had once been Dotty’s carefully shaped croquettes.
“Nothing doing!” said Dolly, philosophically, as she gazed at the charred remains. “You got the lard too hot, Dotsie.”
“So I notice! Well, we’ll have to cut out the croquette course.”
“No matter. I’ll skip over home and get a platter of cold lamb, there was a lot left last night, I know. You chin with the girls, and I’ll fly.”
Dolly scooted out at the back door of Treasure House, and across to her own home, and soon returned with a dainty dish of sliced lamb.
Then she busied herself with her own allotment of the preparations, and began to heat the soup.
“ ’Most ready?” said Dotty, flying in suddenly, and startling Dolly so she nearly dropped the pepper-box.
“Yes, in a minute. Fill the water glasses, set the fruit thing-a-ma-jigs on the table, cut the bread,—oh, no, we have rolls,—well, get them fixed, and hunt up the butter and—oh, my gracious, the salad has upset!”
“Not really!”
“Not entirely; I can straighten it out, I guess. Oh, why did we ask them to come so early! I’ve heaps to do. You put the cocoa in the silver pot, won’t you? and, oh Dot, the olives haven’t been opened yet!”
“I’ll do it. Where’s the opener-thing?”
“I don’t know. I guess there isn’t any over here—”
“I guess there is. Here it is, but it won’t work. You give it a pull, Dolly.”
Both girls, together and in turn, pulled at the refractory cork of the olive bottle,—for without olives, no school girl lunch is complete! But it refused to budge. Now, the ways of corks are most mischievous. Just as they were about to give it up, a last strong pull brought the cork out with a jerk, and the two D’s fell in a heap in the middle of the kitchenette, with such a clatter of accompanying dishes, that the guests came running out to see what was the matter.
They found their hostesses scrambling up from the floor, laughing, but pretty much upset withal.
“It was that old cork,” explained Dotty. “It wouldn’t come out, and then all of a sudden it couldn’t get out quick enough! ’Scuse us girls, for such a racketty performance, but truly, everything is going screw-wampus to-day!”
“Let us help,” begged Grace; “oh, do let us, please.”
“Yes, do help,” said Dolly, who was at the end of her rope. “You, Grace, see if everything is on the table that ought to be there. Ethel, please put some sugar in this bowl,—there’s the box,—and Celia, won’t you set these salad plates on the side table? Maisie May, you just stand around and look pretty,—I don’t know of anything else for you to do. Now, I’ll take up the soup, oh, no, I won’t. We must eat the fruit thingumbob first. Come on, let’s do that. I don’t see how peopleeverget the things ready at the right time. Everything here is either too ready or not enough so. Come on, friends. You sit here, Maisie, and Grace, here.”
Laughing gaily, the girls took their seats, and delightedly attacked the dainty first course. It was a combination of various fruits,—orange, pineapple and crimson cherries, served in delicate slender-stemmed glasses.
“I just love this fruit muddle,” said Maisie, “and this is the best ever! Who made it?”
“I did,” said Dolly, with pardonable pride. “It took most of the morning, though, that’s why everything else fell behind. It isn’t hard to make, but it takes forever.”
The Two D’s were to take turns in changing the plates, so Dolly rose to bring in the soup. Very pretty it looked, in the bouillon cups, but after the first taste Celia hurriedly caught up her glass of water.
“Look out!” she cautioned, but too late. Nearly every girl had taken a spoonful of soup, before she discovered it was burning hot with pepper! When Dotty had come upon Dolly in the act of seasoning the soup, she startled her so, that far more pepper went in than was meant, and the result was appalling.
Eagerly the girls sipped the cold water, and with tears running down their cheeks from the pungent taste and odour, they protested that “they didn’t mind it!”
“I like peppery soup,” said Grace, politely.
“But you don’t like soupy pepper, do you?” gasped Dotty, “and that’s what this is!”
Then Dolly, crestfallen and chagrined, but trying to be merry, took away the soup, and brought the cold lamb, and the salad.
The lamb was all that it should be; but the salad dressing had separated itself into its original ingredients, after the manner of some ill-natured salad dressings. This was harrowing, but Dolly smiled bravely, and acknowledged it was her first attempt.
“Don’t you mind, Doll,” said Grace, comfortingly; “not one of us could make a better one. And with the olives and all, you don’t notice anything the matter.”
But the crowning blow came with the dessert. The girls had made lovely home-made ice cream, and had frozen it with the greatest care. This they felt sure would be right, for they had made it before many times.
But, alas, by some oversight, the freezer had been left outdoors in the sun, the ice had been insufficient, and the result, instead of a finely moulded form, was a lot of thick creamy liquid.
“Don’t you care!” cried Ethel. “I justlovesoft ice cream. Call it a pudding, and let it go at that. Come, Dot, brace up. Who cares for the occasional slips of young housekeepers? Cut the cake and pass it to us, and give us some of that delicious-looking ice cream custard!”
The cake had turned out fairly decent, but not up to the mark. Dotty was a good cake maker but making it in a strange kitchen and baking it in a strange oven had made a difference, and the fluffy sponge cake she usually achieved, showed up a close, almost soggy, and very sticky compound.
“I’m just ready to cry,” said Dotty, as she looked at the dessert, from which they had hoped such great things.
“Don’t do anything so foolish,” said Dolly. “We slipped up on ’most everything, but we tried hard enough, goodness knows! If you’re hungry, girls, there are cookies in the cupboard, and there’s plenty of cocoa.”
“I’ll take some, please,” said Maisie, so plaintively, that they all laughed. And then they all fell to on the previously despised cookies, and under the cheer and raillery of their guests, the two D’s finally regained their poise, and laughed themselves at their chapter of accidents.
“Call it ‘The Feast That Failed,’ and let it go at that,” said Dotty.
“It wasn’t a failure at all,” protested Celia. “We’ve had heaps of fun.”
“Yes, itwasa failure,” insisted Dotty; “and we’ll have to learn to do better. Why, when the boys come home, they’ll make all sorts of fun of us, if we can’t do better than this.”
“Wewilldo better than this,” declared Dolly. “We’ll ask you again, girls, and show you how great an improvement second attempts are!”
“Then I’m glad of this frolic,” said Grace, “for it means we get two parties instead of one.”
“Just what you might have expected,” said Trudy, laughing till the tears rolled down her cheeks at the D’s’ account of the feast. “You little geese, not to know that you couldn’t do it! Now, I’ll take you in hand, and give you a few practical lessons, and then when the boys come home, you can astonish them with your skill and dexterity.”
“All right,” said Dolly. “I’ll try to learn, won’t you, Dots?”
“Well, I rather just guess yes!” exclaimed the other D.