Part 7

Your arrival was the signal for a shrill chorus of jeering cries; why, nobody may know; yet they caused you to flush with an unreasonable sense of shame.

“Hello, Jocko!” greeted Snoopie, affably (Jocko, and not, as stated the family Bible, John, being your actual name).

“Hello!” you responded feebly.

“Hello, Hen!” continued Snoop, determined to be impartial.

“Hello!” said Hen, also feebly.

“Ain’t you goin’ in?” queried Snoop. “G’wan in! What you ’fraid of?”

“G’wan in yourself!” you retorted.

“Well, I would if I was dressed up, you bet!” asserted Snoopie—oblivious of the fact that he was not expected.

“Huh!” scoffed Hen. “You ain’t invited! Ya-a-ah!”

“I know it; but I could have been if I’d wanted to!” declared Snoopie, insinuating his superiority. “I wouldn’t go to their old party!”

“Good reason why!” scoffed you and Hen.

This brief exchange of courtesies having been accomplished, attended by mocking tongues and glances you two proudly entered the gate, leaving on the outside these your social inferiors, and advancing up the walk, studiously elbow to elbow, mounted the porch steps.

“You ring!” insisted Hen.

“No! You!”

Whereupon, in the midst of the discussion the listening door opened, and into the dazzling interior you sidled together, and red as peonies received your welcome.

* * * * *

On the one side of the parlor were clustered the girls, a close corporation in stiff little dresses and stiff big sashes, and locks wonderfully curled or tied with ribbons. They whispered and giggled. On the opposite side were banded the boys, in embarrassing Sunday clothes and squeaky shoes. And they whispered and sniggered.

Betwixt this side of the parlor and that stretched a seemingly impassable chasm, which must be bridged. Upon busy Mrs. Daner, engineer-in-chief of the occasion, devolved the task of establishing communication.

“Clap-in and clap-out!” she heralded briskly.

The little girls were hustled, still giggling, into the adjoining room, and the folding doors were drawn. You boys waited. Presently the doors parted for a crack, and Mrs. Daner, as official announcer, called, between them:

“Harry Peters!”

“Aw, Harry!” derided you all. Assisted by obliging hands, Harry stumbled through the crack, and the doors met behind him. You in the outer room listened breathlessly. An instant—and then came a tremendous burst of clapping and laughter, and Harry, blushing and flustrated, plunged back into your midst.

“Aw, Harry! Got clapped out! Aw, Harry!”

“I did it on purpose!” averred Harry, stoutly. “I guess _I_ knew. I don’t want any girl kissin’ _me_, you bet!”

“Henry Schmidt!” summoned Mrs. Daner.

Hen, being notoriously afraid of girls, must have blindly plumped down into the very first chair available, for scarcely had he entered ere out he fled, headlong, in dire confusion, before a volley of gay voices and staccato palms.

“Johnny Walker!”

That was you. You had been hoping, and now you had arrived. Beset by the usual ridicule—Harry and Hen the leaders in it—reluctantly, after all, you left the safe society of your fellows, and slipping through the fateful crack uncertainly looked about you.

The atmosphere was distinctly feminine. Fourteen little girls stood each behind an empty chair, in almost a circle, and eyed you roguishly. Nobody spoke. You felt as graceful as a hippopotamus and twice as large.

Your wandering glance fell upon Mary Webster. Mary nodded invitingly. And upon Lucy Rogers. Lucy stared at you with intense soberness.

“Hurry up, Johnny. Choose a chair,” urged Mrs. Daner, she being, among her other functions, the discourager of hesitancy.

Poor soul, it devolved upon her to see that the programme moved forward swiftly, so that no one, from the belle and the beau to the fat and the cross-eyed, should be slighted through lack of time.

Mary had nodded. It must be Mary who had called for you; else why should she have nodded? With confidence you darted at Mary’s chair, and seated yourself.

How they shrieked, and how they clapped; none louder than Mary, and none more vengefully than Lucy—Lucy, who, in truth, had called you, and whom you had unwittingly exasperated. Boys are so stupid!

Another victim of female duplicity, out you dived for the refuge of your own sex. You resolved that sometime you would pay Mary Webster back.

Billy Lunt went in next. What befell Billy was signalized by a sudden uproar of laughter and soprano cries, but no clapping!

Billy was being kissed!

“A-a-aw, Billy!” and all of you pointed your fingers at him, and prodded him in the ribs, when, crimson and rumpled, he reappeared.

“Who kissed you?”

“Mary Webster; she tried to but she didn’t do it square! I skinned out an’ they grabbed holt of me, an’ I broke away!” boasted Billy.

After clap-in and clap-out was instituted post-office, and after post-office, drop-the-handkerchief, and after drop-the-handkerchief ensued King William, sung with whatever variations local tongues had given to the old, old rhyme:

King _Will_-yum was King _James’s_ son, And he-e-e th’ royal _race_ did run; Upo-o-on his breast he wore a sta-a-ar Which pe-e-eople called the _sign_ of war. Now cho-o-ose the east, now cho-o-ose the west, And cho-o-ose the one that _you_ love best; If _she’s_ not here to _take_ your part, Go cho-o-ose another with _all_ your heart. Down _on_ this carpet _you_ must kneel, As su-u-ure’s th’ grass grows _in_ the field—

and then, as everybody knows, you are supposed to “kiss your sweet,” and “rise up_on_ your feet.” Some couples kissed, but some wouldn’t.

The gulf ’twixt the boy and the girl factions has long since been effectually spanned. Mindful of Mary’s meanness in befooling you into accepting her inhospitable chair, you devote yourself to Lucy. At first Lucy is lukewarm, and with a pout of distaste only languidly pursues you after you have deposited the handkerchief behind her. You obey a command to “bow to the wittiest, kneel to the prettiest, and kiss the one you love the best,” but although this last honor you would bestow upon Lucy, and struggle desperately to salute her, she grants you merely the tip of an ear.

You persevere in your attentions, and by repeatedly twitching her hair-ribbon into disorderly streamers, you arouse her interest in you. You chase her, screaming, up-stairs and down; and in return she, with screaming unabated, chases you down-stairs and up, and chastises you with playful little slaps and pinches.

Other couples are similarly engaged. Yet you all are “good,” as goodness goes, among your generation.

Out of what is rapidly verging upon chaos, the summons to refreshments brings organization once more. The majority of the boys, comprising the ruder spirits and the so-to-speak unattached, gather in a corner, where it is each for himself and pillage your neighbor. The politer boys, which class includes yourself, stimulated to their duty by Mrs. Daner, attend upon the fair ladies.

You watch protectingly over Lucy, gallantly letting her have the largest piece of cake, although you covet it yourself, and essaying to practise other denials such as have been impressed upon your memory by your mother.

You and Lucy converse. Your “Gee! ain’t this bully!” and her ecstatic response, “My! ain’t it, though!” establish between you a delightful understanding. For her entertainment you dexterously insert into your mouth a whole cookie.

“Oh, Johnny! How awful!” she sniggers.

The ice-cream is chocolate and vanilla, and everybody takes both. Hen seems not to be aggrieved by the absence of strawberry. Not being a ladies’ man, he is in the corner with kindred souls, but you can hear him.

The dishes are large.

“Piggie!” upbraids Lucy, when, having been solicited, you accept a second. Nevertheless, she does not refuse a spoonful from it, now and then.

Last come the candies, amidst which are fascinating motto-wafers, always the source of much mirth and amusement.

All the company exchange mottoes. You and Lucy limit your operations chiefly to one another. For instance, you present her with a pink motto, shaped like a four-leaf clover, which says;

“Are you fickle-minded?”

“You are too stout!” replies Lucy, with a circular disk in cream color.

“Forget me not,” you entreat—the words being done in red upon a white diamond.

“All in life is dear,” answers Lucy, rather vaguely, with a greenish hexagon.

“Are you in earnest?” you query—a pink heart.

“Ask pa’s consent,” suggests Lucy, unmaidenly as the encouragement may appear, with an indented square.

You have to trade around among various friends before you can effectually respond. Sly Mary Webster supplies you with “Say now!” of which you immediately avail yourself.

“Will you marry me?” asks Lucy, dared thereto by companions, while those in the secret whoop and shriek at her boldness.

“Of course I will,” you assure her, providentially possessing the very reply, on a yellow oval.

“That’s what!” comments Lucy.

The remark deserves better, but the best that you can do is a “With all my heart,” on a pink star.

* * * * *

The festivities of the evening are over. It is time to go home. Most of the mottoes have eventually been eaten, and the rest of them have been stuffed, along with other sweets, into greedy pockets. Already some of the girls have been called for by kinspeople, and some of the boys have scrambled through the hall, and noisily fled into the street. You encounter Lucy at the foot of the stairs, and hastily thrust into her hand a motto that you have been saving—a fine shamrock in yellow, which says for you:

“May I see you home to-night?”

There is a motto-wafer with a mitten on it; has Lucy one, and will she be moved to give it to you, as a mischievous rebuff? No; lacking ready answer, she only giggles and attempts to pass on.

“But may I? I ain’t foolin’—truly I ain’t!” you beseech, husky in the stress of the moment.

“_I_ don’t care,” calls back Lucy, half-way up the flight.

And so, much to the disgust of Hen, who had counted upon your society going as well as coming, you “saw her home” in the most exemplary fashion—you keeping to one edge of the walk, and she to the other, and between your parallel routes space for a coach and four.

“Edith Lucas is mad ’cause I said I’d go home with _her_,” vouchsafes Lucy.

“Pooh! We don’t mind, do we?” you affirm, employing a delightful plural.

“Uh-uh,” agrees Lucy.

Beatific silence thenceforth encompassed your route until the Rogers front gate was reached.

“Good-night!” piped Lucy, scampering for the door.

“Good-night!” cried you, running deliriously down the street.

And the next day all the boys in town pestered you with their teasing: “Aw, John! went home with a girl!” and you find “John Walker is Lucy Roger’s beau,” chalked upon horse-blocks and walks and gate-posts.

MIDDLETON’S HILL

MIDDLETON’S HILL

ALL night those new and cherished acquisitions, your copper toed boots, had served patient sentry-duty beside your peaceful couch, now wistfully to wonder why their lord and master did not awaken and see what had happened.

The rising-bell summoned you, but you only protested, blind, and snuggled for another snooze.

“Snowing, John! Get up!” called father.

“Scrape, scrape,” came to your ears the warning of an early shovel.

Your heart gave a wild hurrah, open popped your eyes, to the floor you floundered, to the window you staggered. Sure enough! The sill was heaped to the lower panes, and in the air the flakes were as thick as swarming bees.

Ecstatically alive, you hustled on your clothes, bestowed on face and hair a cold lick and a hasty promise, and in the copper-toed boots (eager for the fray) raced noisily down the stairs.

You found the household less exhilarated and enthusiastic than you had expected.

“Well, this _is_ a snowstorm!” commented mother, in a blank way, pouring the coffee.

“Um-m-m! You bet!” you mumbled.

“It’s good for all day, I guess,” said father solemnly, sipping from his cup as he gazed out.

“Oh, dear! Do you think so?” sighed mother, aghast.

“Oh, gee! I hope so!” sighed you, fervently.

“Shouldn’t wonder if we had a foot or more, by night,” continued father.

You heard him rapturously. Father knew—but it seemed almost too good!

Fourteen buckwheat cakes were all that you could allow yourself, this morning. The snow needed you; and grabbing cap and scarf and mittens, with a battle-cry of defiance and joy you rushed, by the back door, into the furious vortex. The crackling stove, the cheery carpet, the warm, balmy, comfortable atmosphere of indoors appealed not to you.

First, exultantly you dragged forth for a preliminary canter your faithful sled, long since extricated from summer quarters and held in readiness for action. The snow proved satisfactory.

“Ain’t this dandy!” you shouted through the driving flakes, across from chores in your back yard to Hen at chores in his back yard.

“You bet you!” agreed Hen.

So it was, for boys; and Madam Nature, hovering anxiously near, knew that her efforts were appreciated.

“Won’t the hill be bully, tho’!” you jubilated.

“Golly!” reflected Hen.

“Got your runners polished yet?” he asked. “Mine’s all rust.”

“So are mine,” you replied.

Down crowded the snow—there never are such snows, nowadays; so jolly, so welcome, so free from disagreeable features—and in school and as you ploughed back and forth and shoveled your paths, you and your comrades were riotously happy.

Down tumbled the snow—great, soft flakes of it like shredded wool-pack—until, when it ceased, as much had fallen as heart of boy could wish for, which was considerable more than would have satisfied the majority of other people.

The hill was covered, and “sliding” was to be “dandy”—and that was your sole thought. Why else had the snow come?

To-day you remember that hill, don’t you? Middleton’s Hill! Of course you do! The best hill that ever existed. Perfect—for coasting. Ideal—for coasting. Grand—for coasting. Therefore an invaluable possession, although, be it said, of importance rather underestimated by the public generally.

The hill started off gently; suddenly, with a dip, increased its slope; and after a curve, and a splendid bump over a culvert, merged with the level roadway. Difficult enough to ascend in muddy spring, in dusty summer, and even in hard fall, when with the winter it came into its own and was polished by two hundred runners, horse and man usually sought another route. It was practically surrendered to you and yours, as your almost undisputed heritage.

To be sure, occasionally some rebellious citizen attempted to adapt it to his own selfish ends by sprinkling ashes, in a spasmodic fashion, athwart it; but a little snow or water soon nullified the feeble essay. To be sure, occasionally a stubborn driver, his discretion less than his valor, tilted at the glistening, glassy acclivity; and while his horses, zigzagging and slipping, toiled upward, you and yours hailed him as a special gift of Providence and gleefully hitched on behind.

Yes, it was a paragon of a hill, with a record of pleasure to which here and there a broken bone (soon mended) lent but additional zest.

* * * * *

The hill is ready. The track, at first traced by the accommodating sleds and feet of a pioneer few, gradually has been packed and polished until now it lies smooth, straight-away, inviting.

The hill is ready. So are you. Your round turban-like cap is pulled firmly upon your head and over your ears, your red tippet (mother knit it) twice encircles your neck, crosses your breast, and is tied (by mother) behind in a double knot, your red double mittens (mother knit them and constantly darns them) are on your hands, and your legs and feet are in your stout copper-toed, red-topped boots. And your cheeks (mother kissed them) are red, too.

Twitched by its leading-rope, follows you, like a loyal dog, your sled—a very fine sled, than which none is finer.

“Say, but she’s slick, ain’t she!” glories Hen, as you and he hurriedly draw in sight of your goal. From all quarters other boys, and girls as well, are converging, with gay chatter, upon this Mecca of winter sport. Far and wide has gone forth the word that Middleton’s hill is “bully.”

“Ain’t she!” you reply enthusiastically.

With swoop and swerve and shrill cheer down scud the sleds and bobs of the earlier arrivals, and the spectacle spurs you to the crest.

Panting, you reach it.

“You go first,” you say, to Hen.

“Naw; you,” says he.

“All right. I’d just as lief,” you respond.

Breast-high you raise your sled, its rope securely gathered in your hands.

“Clea-ear the track!” you shriek.

“Clea-ear the track!” echoes down the hill, from the mouths of solicitous friends.

You give a little run, and down you slam, sled and all, but you uppermost; a masterly exposition of “belly-bust.” Over the crest you dart. The slope is beneath you, and now you are off, willy-nilly.

“Clea-ear the track!” again you shriek, with your last gasp.

You have begun to fall like a rocket, faster, faster, ever faster, through the black-bordered lane. The wind blinds your eyes, the wind stops your breath, the wind sings in your ears, like an oriflamme stream and strain your tippet-ends, and the snow-crystals spin in your wake. Dexterously applying your toes you steer more by intuition than by sight. You dash around the curve; you strike the culvert, and it flings you into the air until daylight shows ’twixt you and your steed; ka-thump! you have landed again; and presently over the level you glide with slowly decreasing speed until, the last glossy inch covered, the uttermost mark possible, this time, attained, you arise, with eyes watery and face tingly, and stand aside to watch Hen, who comes apace in your rear.

“Aw, that ain’t fair! You’re shovin’! That don’t count!” you assert, as Hen, in order to equal your mark, evinces an inclination to propel with his hands, alligator fashion.

Hen sheepishly desists, and scrambles to his feet.

“Cracky! That’s a reg’ler old belly-bumper, ain’t it!” he exclaims joyously.

He refers to the delicious culvert. You assent. The culvert is a consummation of bliss to which words even more expressive than Hen’s may not do justice.

Up the slope, in the procession along its edge, you and he trudge; and down again, in the procession along its middle, you fly. Over and over and over you do it, and the snow fills sleeve and neck and boot-leg.

Occasionally, with much noise but little real speed, adown the track comes a girl, or two girls. The majority of them, however, use a track of their own—a shorter, slower track, off at one side. Poor things, condemned by fate to their own company and that of the smallest, timidest urchins, they pretend to have exciting times.

They sit up straight, girls do, the ethics of society seeming to deny them the privilege of “belly-buster,” and on high sleds—nothing can be more ignominious than a “girl’s sled”—scraping and screaming, showing glimpses of red flannel petticoats as they prod with their heels, acting much like frightened hens scuttling through a yard they plough to their goal.

For a girl to essay the big hill appears to be “no end of” an undertaking. First she—or, probably they, inasmuch as girls usually adventure in pairs, to encourage each other; first they, then, squat on their flimsy sled, girl fashion (another reproach this: “girl fashion”), and titter and shriek; and the one on behind urges by “hitching” with her feet in the peculiar girl way, and the one on before holds back with her feet and says:

“Wait!”

They wait for bob and sled to precede, until with frantic unanimity of action they seize upon a favorable interim betwixt coasters, and with trepidation are off.

But you overtake them.

“Look out!” you yell, as on your bounding courser you eat up the trail.

“Look out!”

You try to retard your speed by dragging your copper toes. Anticipating the shock of collision you lift the forward part of you, like a worm reconnoitering.

“Look ou-out!”

One last agonizing appeal. And now the pesky girls, glancing behind with sudden apprehension in utmost haste and terror-stricken confusion, amidst wild cries, by dint of laboring feet veer ditchward, stop on the brink, and as you shoot past rise flustrated and gaze after.

Well, they have spoiled your slide. You had a grand start, and goodness knows where you might have gone to. Darn it, why can’t girls stay on their own track!

Yes, indeed. Nevertheless, budding chivalry grafted upon natural superiority prompts you to take Somebody down on a real ride. You would like this Somebody, if the other boys would only let you; but most of the time you cannot afford to.

A sparkling little figure in white hood, fur-trimmed jacket, white mittens strung about her neck, and plaid skirt well wadded out over long leggins, with her ridiculously high sled (girl-sled) she stands by looking on.

“Want to go down, once? I’ll take you,” you offer bluffly.

From amidst the giggling society of her sex she bravely advances, and obediently seats herself on your sled.

“Oh, Lucy! I’d be ’shamed! Sliding with a boy! Oh, Lucy!”

Lucy wriggles disdainfully.

“Don’t you wish _you_ could!” she retorts.

“Aw, John! Takin’ a girl! ’Fore I’d be seen takin’ a girl!” joins in the gibing chorus of your mates.

You hurriedly shove off.

“You got room enough?” asks your solicitous passenger.

“Lots,” you affirm huskily; and crouched to steer you leave the derisive crest behind you.

Down you spin—you and Lucy, both gripping hard the sled; your shoulder pressing against her soft back, and her hair-ribbon whipping across your mouth as you peer vigilantly ahead.

Here is the culvert.

“Hold on tight!” you warn.

“Whisk—slam!”

With a tiny scream from Lucy you have landed, right side up, the three of you.

“Wasn’t that bully?” you query reassuringly.

But Lucy must first recover her breath.

This she does when finally, the sled having entirely ceased motion, you and she must fain disembark.

“My!” she gasps. “I jus’ love to go fast like that, don’t you?”

Her tone conveys volumes. Suffused with proud gratification you pick up the rope.

“You’re a splendid steerer, aren’t you!” she says admiringly.

“Huh!” you scoff. “Steerin’’s easy.”

“Get on and I’ll haul you up,” you proffer.

“Won’t I be too heavy?” she objects, delighted.

“Naw,” you assert. “You’re nothin’.”

Ignoring jeers and flings you carry out your voluntary program, to the very end.

“Thank you ever so much,” pipes Lucy, nimbly running to rejoin her own kind.

Shamefacedly you lift your sled, and with a tremendous belly-buster are away again; and when once more you reach the crest your straggle from grace will have been forgotten.

And at last, wet through and through, countenance like a polished Spitzenburgh (you have a right to the simile, as the barrel in the cellar will testify), hands and feet like parboiled lobsters, reluctant to withdraw but monstrously hungry, you arrive at home to be fed.

“_John!_ Don’t come in here that way! Go right into the kitchen and take off your boots. Mercy!” expostulates mother, as in you stamp, leaving a slushy trail and munching a doughnut as a sop to that clamorous stomach.