Chapter 7

A PARTY AT POLLY'S

"Where you goin', Algy?"

Algernon, half-way down the walk, turned at these words, high and clear, floating down from upper regions.

In the balcony on the second floor Elsmere, clad airily in white night-drawers, leaned pensively over the railing.

"To the party, you know. Go back to bed, Sonny."

"But the party is to Peter and Perdita's, over there,--" with a gesture across the street. "Why do you be goin' that way?" The fat little arm waved in an opposite direction.

"I'm going to get Catherine. Do go in, now, Elsmere. I'll tell you all about the party in the morning," and Algernon hastened down the street, bouncing more than usual in his effort to get out of reach of that penetrating little voice.

"Why," it called after him, "why? Doesn't Caffrine know the way to Peter and Perdita's house? What you goin' to get her _for_?"

The neighbors on their porches smiled, and Algernon reddened as he rushed along.

Elsmere, abandoned, still draped himself over the railing and watched his brother's rapid walk.

"Springs!" he murmured at last, as though he had solved a knotty problem. "Algy walks like a spring seat!"

Then with a lighted candle Elsmere proceeded to make some preparations for an evening of festivity. The party at the Osgoods' was so near that Peter had assured him the music for the porch dancing would reach him even more clearly in his balcony chamber than if he were a really invited guest and on the spot. Peter had further coached him in the method of preparing porches for dancing, and Elsmere had secreted a candle and matches early in the evening, waiting only till Algernon was safely away to apply them. His floor nicely waxed, he curled down in a corner of the balcony to watch the arriving guests, and unexpectedly fell asleep.

"Walk on your heels, why don't you?"

Algernon, escorting Catherine, made this suggestion as she picked her way across a narrow muddy crossing, her white party skirts gathered in one hand. Catherine, poising with difficulty on the toe of one foot, turned and looked at him.

"It just muddies my heels, and then my heels muddy my skirts. Of course, you boys with trousers--" then, toppling, she righted herself and leaped across the last puddle.

"Trousers," said Algernon, getting to her side again, "were worn in Abyssinia as early as--"

Catherine heaved a mighty sigh.

"It's like going out for a stroll with the _Century Book of Facts_ to walk with you, Algernon Swinburne," she declared suddenly. "Do you think in statistics party-nights, even? Haven't you any uninstructive thoughts for warm evenings?"

Algernon regarded her silently.

"Am I such a bore?" he asked quietly.

Catherine caught her breath. She recalled swiftly her father's having said: "If Algernon should once find out that he was a bore, it would probably cure him. He has a lot of sense." And here he was finding it out, on her hands, just because she had, for once, made her groaning comment on his conversation audibly instead of to herself!

It was a serious moment.

"Listen, Algernon," she said, feeling for words. "I wasn't very polite to say what I did, but I'm not going to take it back now. It's really wonderful how you know so much, and people who use the library are appreciating it. But you see, you've lived by yourself all these years, accumulating information, and when you get among people you do have a little way of handing it out to them whether they want it or not. It's as though Mr. Graham should take potatoes and onions to church and pass them around to the congregation! They might be very nice potatoes and onions! I know how it is, because until Hannah Eldred came and woke me up, I used to do nothing but read poetry and cook, and I know I quoted Shakespeare to the girls when they came to see me, and it made them nervous, so they didn't come often. Have you ever noticed how Polly does? She's always interested in what every one says, and she always 'catches on.' She doesn't try to run the conversation, while Dorcas--"

"Dorcas hits you over the head with a club, and then when you're stunned she sits down on you and talks to the others! Am I like her?"

Catherine laughed outright.

"That's very 'wink-ed' of you, Algernon, as Elsmere would say, but it truly does just about describe it. You never do that way yourself, but you do open up and read aloud, so to speak, in company sometimes, in a way that is disconcerting. Now, what could one say to a statement about Abyssinian trousers, for instance, when one is just peacefully walking along, going to a party?"

Algernon straightened his shoulders.

"Much obliged," he said briefly. "I've been doing a little observing on my own account lately, since I've been around with the rest of you so much, and what you tell me fits, all right. I guess I can cut out the information! I say, doesn't the Osgood place look fine?"

The great porch at the Osgoods' "palatial residence," as the Winsted _Courier_ always faithfully referred to the house, was alight with square pink lanterns. A long strip of carpet ran out to the sidewalk, and as she stepped upon it, Catherine put her hair back with a quick gesture and smiled up at her tall companion.

"I tell you, I'm proud to make my entrance by the side of the real Librarian of the Winsted City Library."

"Leave your scarf here, Catriona darling," said Polly, greeting her guests in the doorway. "You don't need to prink. Mother, Father, here are Catherine and Algernon."

Mrs. Osgood came forward and took Catherine's hand with ceremony. Then she turned to Algernon.

"This is really an occasion. I am delighted, in my new capacity as Trustee, to salute the Founder and the Mainstay of our Library."

"O!" protested Catherine. "But isn't it perfectly lovely the way the council did take up with the idea? Was there any hitch at all about it?"

"Not the least," said Mr. Osgood. "You never saw anything smoother. You young folks certainly struck this town with this library scheme of yours at the psychological moment. The council was all for it. The tax was voted, and directors appointed as though it had been talked up for years."

"And Bertha is a trustee," cried Catherine, seeing Bertha in the group beyond. "O, Bertha dear, do use your influence to keep Algernon in office!"

Everybody laughed at that, and Mrs. Osgood threw up her hands.

"We can't help ourselves! No one can ever underbid him, except by paying for the privilege. Algernon won't take a salary."

Algernon flushed uneasily. "I haven't earned one yet," he muttered. "And besides, salaries for public positions--"

Some choice fact was refused utterance there, for Algernon, seeing Catherine's eye upon him, swallowed his harmless 'statistic' and lapsed into silence.

"Where are Bess and Archie?" fussed Polly. "Every one else is here, and we do want to begin dancing. I wonder what can have kept them."

"Here they are," called some one. "Hurry up, you two. You're the latest."

"We've brought our excuse with us," and Archie set down before Mrs. Osgood a bulky newspaper parcel. Bess, smiling mysteriously, refused to answer inquiries, and when the greetings were over Archie produced a knife and started to cut the string.

"Tell them the story first, Archie," suggested Bess.

"You think it would be more dramatic? Well, maybe so, maybe so. Ladies and Gentlemen: I have here a gift for the Winsted Public Library. It comes most appropriately on this evening, when the original supporters of that institution are celebrating their release from its responsibility! Miss Symonds," indicating Bess with a graceful curve of his thumb, "and myself were proceeding hither to join you. Our way led us past the spacious edifice dedicated now to the Cause of Learning and Recreation, having once been given over to hats, and later still, as many now present remember, to rats! The library is, as some of you are aware, not open on Wednesday evenings. Therefore we were surprised to see standing before the door in an attitude of patient expectancy, a rustic gentleman, bearing in his arm this identical parcel. We hesitated and then remarked courteously to the gentleman that there was small hope of his obtaining satisfaction at that particular portal before to-morrow afternoon. His face fell. Seeing which phenomenon, Miss Symonds," again the thumb curve, "being of a kindly nature, offered sympathy to the disappointed reader. He opened his heart to us--and also his bundle. It seems he was not there to borrow books, but to bestow blessings. The article herein contained was destined by his wife, its maker, to adorn the library's walls."

"He said," interrupted Bess, "that he was sure we didn't have anything like it, because his wife invented it, and he didn't know as there was another in the world, even. He seemed to think the library was a kind of museum and every one was sending things, and he and 'wife' wanted to, too. He was a dear old man. So clean, and he wore a red shawl around his neck this hot night--" Bess tossed her own bare head at the thought, and fanned her pretty white shoulders. "Do show it to them, Archie, and don't make fun. He really thought we would think it was lovely, and it certainly is unusual."

"Open it, open it!"

Archie dropped to one knee, cut the string, and, removing one paper after another, lifted slowly a hoop bound in red wool, from which depended twenty fat little birds made of scraps of velvet.

Silence and bewilderment. Then, "What's it for?" faltered some one.

"We must explain it," said Bess laughing. "They don't understand. Neither did we, at first. It's not for anything. It's just an ornament, a beautiful parlor ornament. And you hang it from the chandelier and set it swinging. So!" She illustrated and the gay little birds bobbed merrily up and down.

"They are hung on spiral wires of different lengths, you see, to make them more lifelike and natural."

Every one was full of delight and amusement now, and one hand after another poked the poor little birds till they bobbed to a degree dangerous to their shoe-button eyes.

"It's a variation of the Japanese wind-bell motif," said Mrs. Osgood. "But I shall wish I were not a trustee, if I must act on such problems as that."

Algernon took the hoop and put it back into its wrappings.

"I'll write and thank him," he said, "and I don't see any objection to it. The children will love it. I know Elsmere would."

"We can keep it up for a while and not hurt his feelings," said Bertha, and as Polly at the piano began to play a waltz, the boys chose partners and the porch filled with dancing couples.

It proved, however, rather warm for dancing. Polly and Winifred took turns at the piano, but before long every one was willing to sit and rest.

"Play that pretty last one again, Polly, and let us listen," begged Bess. "It's too warm to stir, but you play that so beautifully."

Polly obligingly seated herself at the piano once more in the broad open window. The light tripping music, unmarred by the sound of sliding feet, floated over the lawn and across the street and up into the Swinburne balcony. Suddenly the lazy group on the Osgood veranda caught sight of a flickering flame high in the neighboring house. Algernon started up, but Bertha restrained him.

"Watch!" she said. "It's Elsmere. I saw him."

The candle was stuck upon the railing of the balcony. Then capering about, in little white night-drawers, to the sound of the music, Elsmere danced, bare-toed, upon his well-waxed floor, the unconscious observed of all observers. Applause long and hearty rewarded his efforts, and also brought Maggie to the rescue. As she pounced upon him and knocked the sputtering candle to the ground, Peter and Perdita, splendid in starched white linen, appeared in the doorway behind "the party" and invited every one to come and draw bows and arrows.

Peter held a quiver of arrows, tied with bright ribbons "for the ladies." His sister at his side offered "the gentlemen" a fine assortment of bows, with varicolored bow-strings. Bows and arrows mated, the hunters marched in pairs to the screened-in breakfast room, looking out over the river.

At each end of the table was a chafing-dish, and in the center was a huge cabbage surmounted by two natural-looking bunnies.

Each marksman tried his luck, and the cabbage was soon riddled, but it was reserved for Bert, with Dorcas' arrow, to knock one rabbit over backward. Thereupon Bert and Dorcas were immediately swathed in great aprons and installed behind the chafing-dishes to show their skill as cooks. Fortunately both were competent, and though much hampered by advice and witticisms, by the time Peter and Perdita had passed the rabbit salad, radishes and olives interspersed with artichokes and little china bunnies, the critical moment had passed, and creamy messes were ready to be ladled forth upon wafers, and consumed in eloquent silence.

When, at last, there was nothing left but a few leathery strings, and even Archie declared his spirit alone was willing, Polly rapped on the table with the handle of a big spoon and called the meeting to order.

"Miss Smith has an announcement to make."

Everybody looked at Catherine. Her eyes were shining and her face was all aglow with pleasure.

"I'm going to have company and I want you all to know it, and come and get acquainted."

"Who is it?" asked some one.

"The rest of the Wide Awake girls."

"What?" "All of them?" "All of you together?" "Not the German one?" "Is Hannah Eldred coming?"

The girls all talked together, and the boys looked mystified.

"I wish some one would enlighten me," said Max helplessly. "Who are the Wide Awake girls?"

"Why, Max! Didn't you ever take _Wide-Awake_?"

"The magazine? Sure thing. What of it? Does Catherine want us to subscribe? After an ivory manicure set or a lawn-mower premium?"

"No, no. Listen, Max, and any of the rest of you who are so ignorant as not to know about the Wide Awake girls. Hannah Eldred advertised for friends once, and Catherine and a little girl in Germany and one out West answered. And the German one proved to be the daughter of a long-lost friend of Hannah's mother, and the one out West turned up at Dexter, rooming next door, when she went there, and now she rooms with Catherine. Did you ever hear such a tale in your life? If you were to read such a string of facts in a book, you wouldn't believe it."

"No more you would," commented Max. "I'm not at all sure I believe it, as it is. Are they all coming at once, Catherine?"

"Not quite. Hannah and Frieda will be here in a week or two, and Alice as soon after as she can. They are all of them the _dearest_ girls!"

"Pretty?" asked Archie.

"Wait and see," laughed Catherine. "They'll make their own impression, but I want you all to be friends as we are."

"We'll do our best to entertain them," said Bert. "Distinguished foreigners don't come our way every day. I move you, Madam President, that we make these Wide Awake young ladies honorary members of the Club."

The motion was put and carried with a round of applause, and a few minutes later the Boat Club meeting was informally adjourned.

Algernon, reaching home at midnight, stole into his brother's room and hung the bird-hoop near his bedside. With characteristic perverseness Elsmere, a sound sleeper by day, was easily wakened at night, and, as Algernon slipped out of the room, he sat up and watched the birds bobbing in the moonlight. Presently he dropped back on his pillow, sleepily content.

"Springs!" he said, "like Algy walks."