Annie and I soon found exactly the right things in my wonder book, and we had the letter written ordering the things before the warning bell rang for visiting to cease.
"I fancy Father would be awfully cut up if he could know I am spending all of this money on my clothes; but he needn't know anything about it. I can wear my old things during the holidays and next summer – "
"Oh, Annie," I broke in, "you are making an awful mistake if you do not let your Father know all about this letter from your Mother, and take him into your confidence immediately. It wouldn't be fair to him if you didn't."
"Not fair to Father! I never thought of such a thing. I am afraid he will be awfully angry with me."
"How could he be? Aren't you doing exactly what your Mother tells you to? I tell you, honey, it pays every time to be perfectly frank. You try and see if it doesn't."
The warning bell rang and I had to beat a hasty retreat, but before I went I kissed poor little Annie and she clung to me and whispered: "I know you are right and I'll write to Father to-morrow and send him Mother's letter."
"That's a good girl; but, Annie, get your letter off to New York for your things first before the Governor has time to veto it."
"Well, what ho!" exclaimed the twins as they tore in to our rooms, undressing as they came to beat the lights out bell to bed. "Tell us all about Annie!"
"There's nothing to tell," I declared, making the mental reservation that there was nothing I could tell, "except that her father sent her a pretty white crêpe de Chine dress that she is going to look charming in, and she has consented to borrow my white slippers for the occasion."
"Oh, how splendid!" cried Dum. But Dee looked at me very solemnly and said: "Page Allison, I know where to put my confidence. Annie Pore has told you the story of her life and wild horses could not drag it from you. I wouldn't have even known she had told if your precious little freckled nose wasn't as red as a cherry." I felt awfully foolish but I borrowed my policy from the Tar Baby "an' kep' on sayin' nothin'."
After the light was out, I gave a little audible chuckle as I lay there going over in my mind the very exciting happenings of the evening. I chuckled to think what Mabel Binks would say if she knew the despised "Orphan Annie" was the granddaughter of a baronet on her father's side and the great-granddaughter of an earl on her mother's.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CONCERT
The concert was a great affair. They had not only the singing and playing from the musical pupils, but refreshments afterward and a little reception. Many of the townspeople came and the boys from Hill-Top. Our Assembly Hall was full to overflowing. Miss Jane Cox was in a highly nervous state.
"I have two pupils who will sing flat," she confided to me, "and if they do it to-night, I'll die of mortification."
"Well, Annie Pore is going to do you credit, anyhow, I feel sure," I said, hoping Miss Cox would take a more cheerful view.
"Yes, I am looking to her to save the day. Have you seen her? She looks beautiful."
I had seen her; in fact, I had hooked her up. My slippers fitted finely and Annie's dress was without doubt the best-looking one on the stage that evening.
Mabel Binks headed the programme with a flashy selection on the piano. She was in her element, showing off. Everything about her proclaimed le dernier cri of fashion. Even her hair was the latest creation of twists and rolls. Her hands were covered with rings and her arms had several bracelets in the form of snakes coiling around them. These rings and bracelets had a way of clicking ever so slightly but just enough to accentuate the effect that her performance was a purely mechanical one.
"Pianola," whispered Dee to me. Dee and I had captured dear old Captain Leahy and made him sit between us. The old fellow was in fine feather and full of jokes. Miss Peyton smiled approval when she saw that we had taken care of her old friend, who always came to the school entertainments by her especial invitation.
"And do ye call that music? I'd rather hear 'Sweet bye and bye' played on the whistle of an engine by a freight engineer on our line than that rattle bang. The freight engineer puts some sowl into his worrk, some meaning. He wants to let his frinds know he is a-cooming home, and his wife to know that 'tis toime to put on the frying pan and get the pot to b'iling. But that, what does that mean? Nothing but nimble fingers. There's no heart in it, – just noise."
We heartily agreed with the old man, but at the close of Mabel's performance there was such a storm of applause from the Juniors who were her especial admirers that the perfunctory clapping from the rest of the audience was completely drowned. She bowed and smiled and rattled her bangles and then sat down and played "Annie Laurie" with her foot on the loud pedal all the time, and with all the variations possible to weave around the beautiful old air.
"Now isn't that too Mabel Binksy for anything?" hissed Dum in my ear. She was right behind us sitting next to Harvie Price, who had sought us out on his arrival at Gresham. "She knows perfectly well that Annie Pore is to sing 'Annie Laurie,' and she chose that for her encore deliberately and without the knowledge of Miss Cox or the piano teacher, either. Cat!"
"And why should ye insult poor pussy so, Miss Tucker?" asked the Captain, who had overheard Dum's remark. "I haven't a cat to me name who would do such a trick."
Annie followed Mabel immediately. I wondered if she would be upset by Mabel's having just played her song, but she was not a whit. She whispered to Miss Cox, who was to play her accompaniment and they evidently decided to change the program.
As Annie came on the stage, I verily believe half of the girls did not at first recognize her. Her dress had that unmistakable air that a good dressmaker can give, and twenty years had not diminished the style; but it was Annie's walk and manner that astonished everyone, even her best friends. Could this be the same, tearful little Annie? She wasn't really little, but I always had thought of her as small just because she seemed to need protection. She was quite as well grown as the Tuckers and a little larger than I was. Her carriage had dignity, and there was a poise and ease to her that is rare in a school girl. Miss Cox played the opening bars to Tom Moore's beautiful and touching song, "Believe me if all those endearing young charms," and Annie sang with the simplicity and confidence of a great artist.
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheek unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose.
There is something in that song that touches everyone, old and young. As Annie finished, for a moment there was perfect silence and then such an ovation as the little English girl did have! Old Captain Leahy beat his peg leg on the floor. "Forgetting me manners in me enthusiasm," he declared. Annie bowed and smiled, no more flustrated than Alma Gluck would have been.
"Did you ever see such stage presence?" whispered Dee. "Why, she is more at home there than we are in 117 in our kimonos."
"That's because she loves to sing and knows she can do it," and at the risk of being considered Annie's claque, I started fresh applause which was taken up by the whole audience; and after another whispered conference with Miss Cox, Annie sang again. This time it was "Bonnie, sweet Bessie, the maid of Dundee." These were songs her mother had taught her, and I could almost fancy the spirit of the mother had entered into the daughter.
"I could almost see her mother as she sang," Harvie Price said to me later on. "I believe Annie's voice is going to be stronger than her mother's and it has the same note of pathos in it. Why, it was all I could do to keep from sobbing when she sang 'Sweet Bessie.' And did you see Shorty? Why, Shorty had his face buried in his hands, and now he pretends he has caught a bad cold! Isn't she pretty, too? The old man must have loosened up some to get that swell dress for her. Grandfather wrote me the other day that Mr. Pore is so economical these days that he won't go to church because he does not want to part with his nickel. He says he is making money, too, on the store, since there is absolutely no competition at the Landing."
"I am so glad you liked her dress," I answered, nearly dead to tell this nice, sympathetic boy all about it; but keeping to my role of Father Confessor, I naturally said nothing about how she came by it.
"I am hoping I can spend part of next summer with my grandfather," continued Harvey. "You know my Governor and his Father fell out about politics and I had to stop going there, but, thank goodness, they have made up now. Father would vote for Roosevelt, while Grandfather thinks anybody belonging to him must be a Democrat. And not long ago Father decided that President Wilson was, after all, about the best President we have ever had, so he wrote to Grandfather and said he was sorry he had ever voted for a Republican; and now the row is over and the family is reunited. Grandfather is very arbitrary and of course it is hard to live with him, but he is the kindest and most generous old man, and I truly love him."
"Annie Pore says he is charming and delightful and that her mother cared so much for him," I said, feeling that that much of Annie's talk with me it would be all right to repeat. This conversation with Harvie was after the concert when we were having refreshments in the Gymnasium. The concert had gone off very well. Miss Cox was jubilant because her pupils who would sing flat had refrained for the occasion. Miss Cox herself had sung delightfully and had won the heart of old Captain Leahy by giving "The Wearing of the Green" as an encore.
When the programme was all over and everyone had done the best she could, Miss Peyton made a little speech and said that by especial request from some of the older guests Miss Annie Pore was to sing "Annie Laurie."
That was really the treat of the evening. We were delighted because it made Mabel Binks so mad.
"I am some weary of that sob stuff from 'Orphan Annie,'" I heard her say to one of the Hill-Top boys.
"Why, I think it is great!" was his unsympathetic reply. "And what a little beauty she is, too!"
Once off the stage, Annie's shyness returned in full force, but it soon wore off under the genial good fellowship of the Tuckers and Mary Flannigan, and Harvie's big-brother air of pride in her success, and Shorty's funny reproaches for making him catch such a bad cold. She looked very happy, and not even Mabel Binks could mar her cheerfulness, although she plainly heard Mabel say to a Junior: "I wonder who lent her that dress. It certainly looks familiar to me and anyone could see it was shortened for the occasion."
My stitches were not so small as they might have been!
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SPREAD
Saturday night was a great time for spreads as there was no study hall on that evening and the girls could come early and stay late. A grand feast was in preparation at 117 Carter Hall. Mr. Tucker had sent a box that had passed inspection at the office, although it was filled with contraband articles; but as he wrote Tweedles, they wouldn't make rules if they did not expect them to be broken.
"My, I'm glad Miss Peyton doesn't put us on our honor not to have cake and such," said Dee as she opened up a box stamped with the name of a well-known drygoods firm and plainly marked in a masculine hand: "Virginia's Shoes, the fourth pair she has had since Spring and she must be more careful and have her old ones half-soled."
"Isn't old Zebedee a peach? Look! Tango sandwiches!" (The catalogue to Gresham plainly says: "Nothing but crackers, fruit and simple candy is allowed to be eaten in the rooms.")
"Here are olives done up to look like shoe polish," said I, diving into the big box. "And what is this big round parcel at the bottom?" On it I read: "Caroline's winter hat. I think you are a very vain girl to insist on your winter hat just to wear it home on the train for Christmas. I hope it is not mashed but think it would serve you right for thinking so much about your appearance." The hat proved to be a great caramel cake, stuck all over with English walnuts, packed so carefully it was not a bit mashed. Jars of pickle masqueraded shamelessly as Uneeda Biscuit, being ingeniously pasted up in the original wrappers. Cream cheese and pimento sandwiches came dressed as graham wafers; and a whole roasted chicken had had a very comfortable journey buttoned up in Dum's old sweater, with a note pinned over its faithful breast saying that Dum must make out with that sweater for another season as Mr. Tucker could not put up with her selfish extravagance.
We heard afterward that Miss Sears, whose duty it had been to inspect this box before it was delivered to the girls, had said that she was surprised to find that Mr. Jeffry Tucker did not spoil the twins nearly so much as she had been led to believe. In fact, he seemed to be rather strict with them and quite critical. For instance, an old sweater that he expected Dum to wear through the season was not really fit to be seen in!
There were several boxes of candy, besides all the other goodies. They were all marked peppermint but were really candied fruit, chocolates, nougat and what not.
"I tell you, Zebedee is some provider when he gets started," said Dee. "I'm glad I didn't eat much dinner and I intend to eat no supper at all."
We were taking stock of our eatables before supper bell so we could see how many girls we could invite to the spread. It was etiquette at Gresham to give a girl fair warning when a spread was under way, so she could save space and not go and fill up in the dining-room. We wanted to avoid feeling like the old countryman who had his first experience with a table d'hôte dinner. Not knowing there was to be so much following the first course, he ate too much of it, and afterward loudly lamented: "Thar I sot chock full er soup."
Annie Pore was, of course, on the list and funny little Mary Flannigan and the two Seniors, Sally Coles and Josephine Barr. They had been especially nice to our crowd and we were anxious to show them some attention. That made seven in all.
"We've really got food for one more or even two," declared Dee, "but maybe we had better go easy because there is really not room for more."
117 was rather crowded with the three beds, two bureaus, three chairs and a table, and seven girls would just about fill it to overflowing. It did not look like the bare cell that had so appalled us on our day of entering Gresham. We now had a scrim curtain at the window; rugs on the floor; Tweedles had pretty Roman blankets on their beds with bright sofa cushions; while I had a beautiful log cabin quilt that Sally Winn had pieced for me in between her different death throes. The walls were literally covered with pennants from many schools and colleges with a few pictures that Dum had stuck in her trunk, purloined from their apartment in Richmond.
"I don't believe Zebedee will ever miss them, and they mean a lot to me," she had said when Dee had expressed astonishment on her producing them from her trunk. "I am so constituted that I've just got to have something beautiful to look at every now and then." The room was pleasant and cozy but the crowded walls rather got on my nerves. Bracken was so big and simple (some people would have called it bare) that I could not get used to such a conglomeration in a bedroom. I kept my taste to myself, however, as they were two to one, and no doubt my ideas of decoration were very old-fashioned and out of date.
Sally Coles and Jo Barr, whom we sought out before supper, were glad to accept and vowed they would eat not a bite before the feast so that they could come perfectly empty. Of course Annie Pore and Mary Flannigan were holding themselves in readiness for the arrival of the promised box from Mr. Tucker, and the news of its having come safely to hand was greeted with enthusiasm.
You get tired of any steady food except home food and sometimes you think you are tired of that, but as a rule you are pretty glad to get back to it. I fancy the table at Gresham was kept up about as well as any boarding school, but we knew that as sure as Tuesday was coming, roast veal was coming, too; and Wednesday would bring with it veal potpie; Thursday, beefsteak; and Friday, fish; Saturday, lamb stew with dumplings; Sunday, roast chicken; and Monday, not much of anything. This certainty bored us, and sometimes I used to think if I couldn't find something in the potpie besides veal, I'd scream. I had to do a lot of looking at the mountains on Wednesday, somehow.
A spread was a godsend, and an invitation to one was not as a rule given in vain. As Sally Coles and I fox-trotted together in the Gym after supper, she whispered in my ear: "It's certainly good of you kids to ask Jo and me. We're crazy about coming."
"We think it's pretty nice of you Seniors to come. You didn't even know we are to have caramel cake, either, did you?" I answered.
"Heavens, no! I'm mighty glad we didn't accept Mabel Binks's bid to a Welsh rarebit in her room. We fibbed and told her we had a partial engagement. It was just with each other but we didn't tell her that, and now you Sophomores have saved our souls by making our imaginary engagement a real one. I hate to tell even a white lie, but I'd hate a deal more to have to go to a spread of Mabel Binks's giving. Don't you know the hammers will be flying to-night? Can't you hear Mabel and those rapid Juniors she runs with knocking everything and everybody?"
"Yes, I reckon the only way to save your skin is to stay with her and help knock. But how does she manage a rarebit when we are not allowed to have chafing dishes?"
"Manages the same way you and the Tuckers manage to have caramel cake, I fancy. We are not allowed to have cake, either. Of course it is easier to hide a cake than it is a chafing dish, especially if the cake is sliced and there are a half-dozen empty girls to help. I believe some of the girls keep their chafing dishes under their mattresses. Did you hide your cake well before you came down to supper? It would be the psychological moment for some busybody to make an inspecting tour – and then, good-by, cake!"
"Oh, you scare me to death!" and I grabbed Dee, who was whirling by, trying a brand new step with a giddy Junior, and, whispering Sally's warning to her, we beat a hasty retreat. Our beloved cake was on the table covered with a napkin just as we had left it, seemingly, but on raising the cloth we discovered that a great wedge had been cut out of it.
"Well, of all the mean tricks!" spluttered Dee. "Who do you s'pose – ?"
"Thank goodness, they only took about a fourth! What is left is enough to give all seven of us fever blisters. Caramel cake with nuts in it always gives me fever blisters," I laughed.
"But I don't mind. I'll take the cake, fever blisters and all, every time."
"Me, too! Well, I hope that the thief will have a mouth full of them," said Dee vindictively.
"Well, honey, it's a sight better to have some mean girl take off one fourth than some teacher in her mistaken zeal take off the whole thing and give us demerits, besides. Here's your handkerchief," I said, picking up a little pink crêpe de Chine one from the floor.
"Not mine, I don't possess such a thing. Don't you know Zebedee and Dum and I use the same sized handkerchiefs? When we want a handkerchief, we want a handkerchief, not a little pink dab. It must be yours."
"No, I haven't any crêpe de Chine ones. Here's an initial – B. It certainly is scented up." The finishing touch to Mabel Binks's costume on the afternoon we had seen the game at Hill-Top came back to me suddenly: the strong odor of musk. The handkerchief smelt exactly the same way.
"Well, Dee, I reckon it won't take a Sherlock Holmes to say who took the cake, now. Let's not give her back her hanky until to-morrow. If we took it to her to-night she would know that we are on to her, and she would be just mean enough to peach on us and have our cake seized." So we determined, like Dee and Prosper le Gai, to "bide our time."
What a spread we did have and what fun! Dum turned up with two more girls, members of our class, and there was enough and to spare. Mr. Tucker was as lavish as Mammy Susan herself. We had no plates or glasses, but we had plenty of box tops for dishes and our toothbrush mugs served as loving cups to drink the very sour lemonade Dee made in the water pitcher. The same knife carved the chicken, then cut the cake. The olives, always difficult to extract from the bottle, were poured into the soap dish which I had scoured hard enough to suit the most squeamish.
"My, what good eats!" exclaimed Jo Barr. "And how did you ever smuggle that cake within the lines?" We showed her the wrapper it had come in and the stern note from Mr. Tucker.
"Well, if that doesn't beat all! I tell you there is nothing like being smart enough to keep the eleventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not get found out.' I had a whole fruitcake taken bodaciously from me last year. I am always breaking the eleventh." And that was so. Poor Jo always got caught up with.
"Well, I tell you one thing," said the wise Sally, "that cake had better skidoo until danger of inspection passes. Teachers are a suspicious lot."
I just got it whisked under a down cushion on Dee's bed when there was a sharp rap on the door. "Come in," we called in a chorus. It was Miss Sears, rather astonished at our ready invitation to enter.
"Oh, girls, having a spread, are you," glancing sharply at the innocent-looking packages of crackers and peppermint candy without coming all the way into the room. "Well, I hope you will have a nice time."
"Won't you join us, Miss Sears?" asked Dum sweetly.
"Oh, thank you, no. I am on inspection duty to-night," and she closed the door, never seeing that Jo had wrapped the roasted chicken up in a spangled scarf she was sporting. That chicken had had all kinds of dressing in its fat, young life: first its own feathers; then the dressing, which is really the un-dressing; then the dressing, which is really the stuffing; then Dum's old sweater; and now Jo's fine scarf.
We proceeded then to put the good, appetizing food where nothing short of an X-ray could inspect. So thorough were those nine girls that not a crumb of cake nor scrap of sandwich was left to tell on us. The chicken bones were some problem but we decided that if each girl took a bone and disposed of it, it would simplify matters somewhat. Sally got the wishbone and said she was going to gild it and put it on her "memory string."
When we had eaten to repletion, we demanded stunts from those gifted that way. Mary did a dog fight and new turn she had just mastered: going like a mouse.
"I wish I could think it was a mouse who nibbled the cake," sighed Dum. "It kind of hurts me all over to feel that somebody did it."
"Well, if it was a mouse, I bet it sounded like this," and Mary imitated Mabel Binks's nasal speech until we almost had hysterics.
"Why do you fancy she took only a hunk instead of the whole cake?" I asked. "It would have been so much more like her to take it all."
"That's the reason she only took part. She thought by behaving out of character she would throw us off the scent," suggested Sally.
"Well, if she wanted to throw us off the scent, she shouldn't have dropped her handkerchief," said Dee. "But let's forget it and think of something pleasant. Annie, you sing, please," and she handed Jo's guitar to the blushing Annie. Annie was always embarrassed when she had to sing before a few persons. She got her "stage presence" when there was a real audience.
"What shall it be?" asked Annie.
"Oh, something real sentimental and lovesick," demanded Sally, who was supposed to be engaged; and with a little humorous twinkle in her usually sad eyes, Annie sang "Sally in our Alley."
Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Of all the days that's in the week
I dearly love but one day —
And that's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I'm dressed all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Then Dum and Dee stood back to back and buttoned themselves up in their sweaters, which they had put on hindpart-before and impersonated the two-headed woman, Milly-Christine, singing a duet, "The mocking bird is singing o'er her grave," in two distinct keys. That was an awfully funny stunt and one the Tuckers had made up themselves. Before we had half exhausted the talent of the assembled guests, the bell rang to warn us that lights must soon be out and we had to break up.
The next morning there was a fine crop of fever blisters due to the very rich cake. Annie Pore and Sally Coles were the only ones who escaped with a whole skin. When I handed Mabel Binks her smelly, pink, crêpe de Chine handkerchief, I noticed that her rather full lips were decorated with a design similar to my own.
"Here's your handkerchief," I said. "Cake with caramel and nut filling is awfully rough on the complexion, isn't it?" And the girl had the decency to blush.