CHAPTER XII

A BATTLE ROYAL

That night was another wakeful one for Phœbe. She had thoroughly enjoyed the lawn fête, but it left her too nervous for peaceful slumber until her pulses had calmed down and she was enabled to regain her accustomed composure. She went to bed, but not to sleep, and after the house became quiet she lay thinking over the incidents of the evening.

Gradually peace came to her. She was really tired, and the somnolent thrall of midnight was making her drowsy when she was roused by the movements of old Elaine in the next room.

It had been nearly a week since she had removed the board over the transom and prepared her peephole, but during that time the housekeeper had remained quiet, or at least Phœbe had not heard her. To-night the stealthy sounds began again, and after listening a few moments the girl softly arose, drew the table to a position before the door and mounted upon it.

She tried to be quiet, but probably she made some sound in these preparations, for scarcely had she slid the corner of the board away, to look into the next room, when the light which faintly illumined it was suddenly extinguished.

Phœbe stood motionless, waiting. Elaine, doubtless alarmed, did not stir for a long time. The old woman may have scented danger without realizing in what manner it threatened her, but her caution was excessive. At last, Phœbe heard her breathe a low sigh and then patter softly across the room to her bed and lie down.

The seance was over for to-night, without doubt. Exercising great care, the girl noiselessly descended from her perch and, tiptoeing to bed, composed herself to slumber.

Next morning, in considering the night’s occurrence, she decided to leave the table where it stood--before the door--and to place a chair beside it so she could mount noiselessly at any moment. It was several days, however, before Elaine recovered from her fright or suspicions, and during that time no unusual sounds came from her room.

It rained the morning after Marion’s party, and Phœbe was curious to know if all the pretty lanterns had been wetted and destroyed. But, on looking across at the lawn she discovered that every trace of last night’s festivities had been removed by the servants. Tents, lanterns, band stand, all had been taken away as soon as the guests had departed, and the Randolph grounds were as trim and orderly as before.

The children resented the rain, for it kept all of them except Phil, who was at work, cooped up in the house until after dinner. Judith found time, during the dreary forenoon, to tell them some stories and to talk over with them once again the adventures of the lawn fête, which still occupied their minds.

When, at last, the rain ceased and the bright July sun came out of the clouds, they greeted it with genuine relief and joyously scattered in all directions.

Don, deserted by Becky, who had to go to Miss Gray’s for her music lesson, walked out to the street and found Allerton promenading up and down the opposite sidewalk, his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back--as an old man might have strutted. The sight awakened Don’s slumbering wrath and he called out:

“Hello, mollycoddle! What are you up to?”

Allerton straightened up and glanced across the street.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Are you ready for your thrashing?”

“Yes. I dare you to come over here,” responded Don, promptly.

“If you want your punishment, come and get it!”

“You’re afraid,” sneered Don.

“It isn’t that,” replied Allerton. “I haven’t my gloves here, and I dislike to soil my hands.”

Don glared at his neighbor’s spick and span apparel, and the sight of the “dandy” made him still more combative. Allerton was the biggest and strongest, perhaps; but he was nearly a year younger than Don, who had no thought of his own disadvantage. In that mood he would willingly have fought a giant.

“I dare you to come half way,” he challenged, and as the other boy hesitated, Don advanced along the muddy crossing at the corner until he was at about the middle of it. It was an old board crosswalk, and just beyond where Don stood it was so low that the thin mud of the street had spread a layer over it.

This it was that caused Allerton to hesitate. He had a natural regard for his polished shoes and carefully brushed clothes and, while fully as eager for the fray as Donald, he would have preferred a more suitable place to fight.

The taunts of young Daring, however, were not to be endured. It was really necessary to teach impolite Donald a lesson he would remember. So Allerton attempted the crossing.

When he came to the muddy section he halted.

“Come on, then!” he exclaimed.

“This is half way,” said Don. “Come on yourself.”

“You back down, do you?”

“No, I don’t back down. You’re the coward, Al.”

“Coward!”

“That’s what I said.”

It was too great an insult for Allerton to brook. With doubled fists he advanced upon the eager, slender boy awaiting him. Don staggered under a heavy blow received full upon the chin, and then his own fist shot out and struck Allerton’s chest.

To his amazement it was “a knockdown.” Young Randolph’s feet slipped on the slimy crossing and he fell backward full length in the soft mud of the road.

With a roar of rage and chagrin he scrambled to his feet, and Don planted another blow that sent him to the mud again. It was not a hard blow, by any means. It seemed as though a mere touch was sufficient, for Allerton’s feet were now so covered with mud that he could scarcely stand upon them. A push from Don sufficed to upset him, and observing the ease of the operation Don repeated his blow each time that Allerton arose, laughing gleefully at the result of his own prowess. In the heat of the encounter, however, he neglected to keep his own footing on the cleaner and safer portion of the boards, so that in one of Allerton’s falls his arm struck Don and sent him likewise sprawling in the sticky mud.

They sat up and looked at each other in bewilderment. Allerton had never been so astonished in his life as at his present misadventure, and now, as he saw one side of Don’s head plastered with mud, which filled an ear and an eye, he burst into a hearty laugh.

Don scraped the mud out of his eye, blinked at his antagonist, and laughed too.

“Guess honors are about even, Al,” he said. “I’ve had enough. Have you?”

“Plenty,” declared Allerton, making an effort to rise from the puddle. Don managed to find his feet after a severe struggle.

“My, but you’re a sight!” he exclaimed.

“So are you,” replied Allerton, cheerfully. “We both ought to be ashamed of ourselves.”

“I--I’m afraid Cousin Judith will scold.”

“Well, I’m certain to catch it, all right. So long, Don.”

“So long, Al. Let’s go down town, after we’ve dressed.”

“All right.”

Thus the fight resulted in amity; but Don was dreadfully humiliated when he had to face the Little Mother in all that mess. He took off his shoes on the porch and humbly made his way up stairs to knock at Judith’s door.

“I--I’ve fallen down in the mud,” he called to her. “May I put on my best suit?”

Miss Eliot had been a witness of the entire scrimmage from her window, and had even overheard the words that had preceded and provoked the fight. She had decided not to interfere, but now she answered in a frigid voice through the closed door:

“No, Donald. I cannot have your best suit ruined.”

“But what shall I do, Cousin Judith?”

“You must go to bed until the mud on your clothes dries and they can be properly cleaned.”

Donald stood silently in the hall, his face flushed red with humiliation. He waited a long while for Cousin Judith to speak again, but she remained silent. At last he crept away to his own room, removed the disreputable garments and examined them dolefully. Coat, trousers, shirt, stockings--all were alike plastered with thick layers of fresh mud. It would take them a long time to dry, he feared.

With a sinking heart he put on his pajamas, having first washed himself clean, and then sat down to consider his dismal fate.

“It was a pretty good fight,” he mused; “but fighting don’t seem to pay, somehow. I wish I had let Al alone. He isn’t so much of a mollycoddle, after all.”

Finally, he thought of Aunt Hyacinth, and resolving to appeal to that faithful friend he crept down into the kitchen and begged her to help him. Aunty looked the clothes over in dismay, saying:

“’Tain’t no use, Marse Don. Dat ’ar mud won’t dry ’fore mawnin’, nohow. I’ll do mah bes’, honey; but I neveh seen sich a mess in all mah bohn days!”

With this verdict Don was forced to be content. He had a notion to appeal to Cousin Judith again, but could not muster the courage. So he got a book, lay down upon his bed and passed the rest of the afternoon in abject misery.