CHAPTER LIII

MARY FRANCES’ GARDEN PARTY

“THERE!” Mary Frances looked up from her writing. “That is the last invitation, all ready for the envelope. Eleanor, did you hear?”

“I heard,” her little friend laughed, “but I was so busy putting the last curl to the tail of the address on the last envelope that I couldn’t pay attention.”

“Oh, I am so much obliged to you for addressing them,” said Mary Frances. “Let me see if I’ve thought of every one,” laying them aside as she counted.

“Here is Grandma’s; here, Aunt Maria’s; here, your father’s; here, Bob’s; and last, but very important, Mother and Father’s. Let’s go mail them.”

“What did you say to Aunt Maria?” Eleanor inquired as they walked along.

“I said,” Mary Frances recited:

“DEAR AUNT MARIA:—

“Please come to my Garden Party next Wednesday. We’ve been industrious enough this Summer to please even you!

“I don’t want to tell you any more, for fear I’ll spoil the surprise, but we won’t have a bit nice time unless you are with us. I’ll never forget how pleased you were with my cooking surprise.

“With love, which I want to give you in real hugs, and real kisses,

“MARY FRANCES.”

“Mary Frances, do you dare hug your Aunt Maria? I’d never dare, I’m sure. The very thought scares me! She always seems so cross.”

Mary Frances laughed. “I used to feel the same way,” she said, “but after I found out that she was cross just because she was afraid——”

“Afraid? Your Aunt Maria afraid!”

“Yes, afraid, and ashamed that somebody might think she was loving and kind. When I found that out, I felt different. I was sorry for her.”

“I know she loves you dearly,” Eleanor admitted.

“She’s a dear old bear who growls just for fun, and I hope she comes to the party. Grandma will come, I know, and——”

“So will Father and Bob,” finished Eleanor.

“Oh, I can scarcely wait for Wednesday!”

They were at the post office by this time. On their way home they discussed their plans.

“Billy will bring the tables to the play house on Tuesday,” said Mary Frances, “and we’ll all do everything we can to get ready.”

“What shall we have for refreshments?” Eleanor asked.

“Why, I think it would be lovely to have everything from our garden—of course, excepting the ice-cream,” Mary Frances laughed. “I wonder how this would be:

Tomato and Lettuce Salad with Mayonnaise Dressing Creamed Potatoes Cucumber Relish

Sandwiches Green Pepper and Cheese Nasturtium

Ice-Cream Spearmint Jumbles Coffee

“Oh, Mary Frances, that sounds perfectly wonderful to me!” exclaimed Eleanor, “but how can you manage to serve so many things?”

“It won’t be hard to manage,” Mary Frances answered, well pleased. “I’ve thought it all out carefully. We can have the mayonnaise dressing all ready for the salad the day before, and can make the sandwiches Wednesday morning if we wrap them in waxed paper.”

“How do you make those sandwiches, Mary Frances?” asked Eleanor.

“Oh, I’m glad you asked that, for they are so good, Eleanor. Use—

FOR TWELVE GREEN PEPPER SANDWICHES

3 five-cent packages cream cheese 2 green peppers, chopped very fine

Mix together and spread on well-buttered thin slices of bread. Cover each with another buttered——

“As if I didn’t know that much!” exclaimed Eleanor. “How do you make the other kind?”

“Oh, the nasturtium sandwiches? Why, you use the chopped stems and a few flowers of the nasturtium plant between the bread. They taste something like the daintiest of radishes.”

“I can make the sandwiches!” Eleanor exclaimed. “They are easy. Now, what about the potatoes?”

“They can be creamed in the morning and warmed in the oven just before serving.”

“Oh, that’s fine! What about the spearmint jumbles you mentioned?”

“I made up that recipe,” Mary Frances confessed. “You see, I’m so crazy to have everything from the garden that I just had to be original.”

“I’m wild to hear about this recipe!” Eleanor said. “Let’s go into the play house and I’ll write it down.”

When they were seated, Mary Frances began:

“I looked all over the garden, Eleanor, and I couldn’t think of a thing we could use in making candy, and I certainly think we need candy, don’t you?”

“Indeed, I do!” Eleanor agreed.

“Suddenly I spied the spearmint growing with my other herbs. ‘The very thing!’ I thought, so I just made up a very simple recipe for—

SPEARMINT JUMBLES

2 cups sugar ½ cup water 1 cup mint leaves

1. Wash the mint leaves.

2. Put the sugar in a saucepan. Add the water.

3. Stir sugar over the fire until dissolved.

4. Cook quite hard until the sugar begins to turn brown. Take from the fire. Add mint leaves, stirring hard.

5. Turn out on a buttered pie plate. Add 2 tablespoons butter.

6. Stir hard until candy falls apart or crumbles into small pieces.

“My, but you are smart, Mary Frances!” declared Eleanor. “I wish I could do such things—but what if some people don’t care for spearmint flavor?”

“We could make some fudge.” Mary Frances met the suggestion, “but I think everybody ought to think it good this time because it’s from our garden. I didn’t like to plan for ice-cream even because it didn’t grow there.”

“Don’t you wish it did!” cried Eleanor.

“If it did, I’d have acres of ice-cream plants!” Mary Frances laughed.

“We’ll cook everything right here in the play house,” she continued; “that little stove will do all that we want.”

“Oh, won’t it be too grand for anything!” Eleanor hugged Mary Frances in enthusiasm.

* * * * *

So when Tuesday came, they set to work, and carried out their plans.

“Who’s to serve the feast?” asked Billy, as he arranged the plates according to the girls’ directions.

“Oh, we’ll do that,” answered Mary Frances. “All we ask you to do, Billy, is to open the freezer and dish the ice-cream.”

“Believe me, you may count on me, ladies,” said Billy, bowing. “Count on me for a large share in the ice-cream work, although I can’t see that there will be much work, for I ordered it in the form of bricks.”

“Billy, you’re a brick!” laughed Eleanor.

By twelve o’clock Wednesday, the refreshments were ready, and the girls went to the big house to “doll up,” as Billy said.

Mary Frances glanced out of the window just as she fastened the last button of Eleanor’s dress.

“Here comes Aunt Maria!” she cried and bounded down-stairs and out on the porch to meet her. While she was hugging her, Eleanor’s father and Bob appeared on the scene, and you can imagine how happy the little girls were.

“Where can Grandma be?” Mary Frances asked, after her mother and father had welcomed everybody. “Oh, there comes the station auto-bus. It’s going to stop here!” Surely enough it stopped, and out stepped the dear old lady, whom everybody tried to greet at once.

In the midst of the confusion, Mary Frances and Eleanor slipped away to the play house, and a little later Billy and Bob piloted the guests to the play house garden.

“Mistress Mary, never contrary, Will show how her garden grows,”

announced Bob, leading the way up the path, where Mary Frances shook hands with each one in a most grown-up, dignified fashion introducing them to “My friend, Miss Eleanor,” just as Mother Paper Doll had done in the Housekeeper story.

“So this is you children’s garden surprise, dear! Isn’t it beautiful!” There were tears of joy in their mother’s eyes.

“Were there ever such children!” exclaimed their grandmother.

“If there are any more wonderful, I have yet to see them!” Aunt Maria’s nose went up into the air with pride.

“Jolly good gardener, Bill!” Bob slapped his friend on the back.

“What you’ll be next year,” Billy retorted.

“Father hasn’t said a word!” Mary Frances suddenly discovered.

“I’ve been speechless with surprise, dear,” he said. “It certainly paid to wait to see such a garden. The flowers are wonderful!”

“Why, haven’t you seen the garden before this?” everybody asked, and he told the whole story.

As he finished, Bob and Eleanor’s father spoke. “I’m gladder than ever that Bob’s to go away to Billy’s school!”

Then nearly everybody began to talk at once, saying how much more sensible the ideals of education were to-day than when they were young, and more of such grown-up talk, which gave the boys and girls a chance to slip away to get the refreshments.

“How did you guess we were hungry?” asked Bob’s father as Mary Frances served the salad, and Eleanor passed the sandwiches in a dainty basket, trimmed with pink bows.

“Where did you find such beautiful lettuce and tomatoes, dear?” asked Grandma, showing her enjoyment of the treat.

“That’s part of the secret,” laughed Mary Frances. “After you’ve tested our vegetables, we’ll show you our vegetable garden.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Bob, “you don’t mean to say you raised these?”

“Everything’s from this garden except the ice-cream!” Eleanor asserted proudly.

“Some farmers!” Bob started to say, but his father interposed.

“You forget, son, that you’re in a formal social gathering—at a garden party, if you please.”

“Please pardon me,” Bob begged, bowing to the company.

“Let them talk—it’s the youngsters’ party,” somebody whispered so loud that everybody heard, and everybody laughed.

After the ice-cream and coffee had been served, and the bonbon dish of candy was passed, “What delicious mints!” so many people praised, that Mary Frances said she would carry the candy dish with them to the vegetable garden, and all could see the bed of mint where she gathered the leaves for the flavor.

It would be impossible to tell you how happy and proud the children were as they showed their vegetable garden, with its beautiful neat beds bordered with nasturtiums.

You can imagine how they looked, for if you read the garden lists in early chapters of this story, you know what they had growing.

“Everybody may pick a bouquet,” said Mary Frances, seizing Eleanor’s hand and leading the party to the flower garden. Just as they started, Doctor Hopewell drove up with his son and two daughters.

“We couldn’t help stopping,” he declared. “You made such a beautiful picture.”

They were welcomed with delight, and the girls insisted upon their having some salad and ice-cream.

“Isn’t this the most charming thing you ever heard of!” sighed Marjorie Hopewell.

“It’s just like a girl’s dream come true!” her sister Helen agreed.

“The girls will never get over this. To have peace I’ll have to turn farmer yet! Bill and Bob will have to give me pointers!” their brother Harry laughed.

“Indeed, I’d like to see you all doing what these young people have done,” their father told them.

The doctor and his family left in about an hour, with flowers for Mrs. Hopewell, but the other guests stayed until five o’clock, sitting on the easy chairs which Billy had placed along the walk in front of the play house.

The day was so beautiful—not too warm, not too cool; not a rain cloud in the sky, but scattered about with little white fleecy “flocks of lambs” clouds, as Mary Frances said. Perhaps that and the beauty of the garden made them linger, but they seemed sorry to leave.

“You will all come again! Soon!” Mary Frances and Billy made them promise. “And you’ll come to our garden party next year! We’ll have both Bob and Eleanor for partners then!”