THE HALLOWE'EN PARTY.
"Girls! Miss Plympton has actually given her consent to a Hallowe'en
party in the Gym. We have to start at eight and stop at ten, though,"
called Mary through the concealed 'phone.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Dee, who had the receiver at her ear, although Dum
and I were both crowding into the closet to get the news that Mary was
giving so loudly that you could really hear it through the walls without
the aid of the toy telephone. "That's no good. Witches don't walk so
early in the night."
"Well, it's better than nothing," answered Mary. "It can be a
masquerade. We are thinking of having a sheet and pillow case party. The
Seniors want all of our quintette to serve on the committee of
entertainment. You see, the Seniors are really getting this up. That's
why old Lady Plumpton will let us do it. She lets the Seniors do lots
of things, but she certainly has got it in for the poor Juniors."
Then there was a confused sound of Annie's trying to talk through the
'phone with Mary, and Dum decided Dee had had a long enough turn. Some
mixup ensued in the two closets with the result that Dum's best dress,
that served as a portiere for the batteries, had to be sent to the
presser, and I got possession of our end of the line and found Annie on
the other.
"Page, Harvie Price writes me from the University that he is going to be
at Hill Top, visiting Shorty Hawkins for a day or so soon, and he wants
to come see me. Do you think Miss Plympton will permit it?"
"Can't you work the cousin racket on her?"
"No, she knows I have no relatives in the States."
"Well, then, he may be allowed to sit in the same church with you if he
should happen to be here over Sunday and his voice can mingle with yours
in praise and thanksgiving," I teased. "You know how Miss Plympton sat
on Jean Rice when her third cousin once removed from Georgia came to
call. She refused positively to let her see him until his kinship was
proved and then she only let him call fifteen minutes. If he had been a
plain third cousin she would have permitted half an hour; second once
removed an hour; plain second two hours; first once removed four hours;
plain first eight hours----"
"Page! This is not a problem in arithmetical progression. Please tell me
how he can manage."
"Bless you if I know--unless he can come to the sheet and pillow case
party. You might let him know one is in prospect." A giggle from Annie
answered me and a shout of joy from Mary as her roommate imparted this
suggestion to her.
"Of course it would never do," Annie said to me later on in the day when
no wall divided us, "but wouldn't it be a joke on Miss Plympton and the
faculty if some of the boys would come?"
"Yes, quite like Tennyson's Princess, but if we got mixed up in it, it
would be a serious misdemeanor." I was willing to go pretty far in fun,
but I had no intention of being imprudent and giving Miss Plympton any
real cause for the suspicion she seemed to entertain for our crowd. "I
tell you, Annie, if I were you I'd go and ask Miss Plympton if Harvie
can call and if she will not consent, just write and tell him so."
Miss Plympton refused to grant permission for the call unless Harvie
could obtain a request from Annie's father, and as that was seemingly
impossible the matter had to be dropped. Annie wrote to the youth and
told him the state of affairs and that was all she had to do with it.
The Gresham girls and the Hill Top boys usually met at football games at
Hill Top, and basketball games at Gresham; they sat across the church
from each other on Sunday and prayer meeting night. As is the way with
boys and girls and has been the way since the world began, I fancy,
there were a few inevitable flirtations going on. Some of them, under
the cloak of great piety, kept up a lively conversation with their eyes
during the longest prayers, or sang hymns at each other with the
greatest fervor. One ingenious boy actually wrote a love letter (at
least that is what we loved to designate it) and sent it to his
inamorata on the collection plate. With meaning glances he placed it on
the plate together with his mite. The deacon, all unconscious of the
important mission with which he was intrusted, proceeded with slow
dignity to pass the plate to pew after pew of boys and then up the aisle
on the girls' side. Every boy and girl in that church knew what was
going on, but there was not a flicker of an eyelash as the exceedingly
pretty and rosy Junior, for whom the note was intended, put out her
daintily gloved hand, dropped in her nickel and quickly closed her
fingers over the billet-doux and slipped it into her muff. There was a
noiseless noise of a sigh, a sigh of extreme relief, that went over all
the expectant pupils, boys and girls. Then with what vim and spirit did
we rise and sing the appointed hymn: "A charge to keep I have"! The old
gentleman who took up the collection was ever after known to us as
"Deacon Cupid."
Hallowe'en arrived. It was a splendid crisp, cold day, which put us in
high spirits. Even Miss Plympton was in a frisky humour and actually
cracked a joke, at least she almost did. She stopped herself in time and
made another chin instead, but by almost cracking it she had shown
herself to be almost human, which was in itself encouraging. Our
quintette was out of bounds. We had worked off all of our demerits and
were in good standing with the faculty.
"Now if we can just stay good a while!" wailed Mary. "I, for one, am
tired of getting into scrapes and mean to be a little tin angel for at
least a week. I wouldn't think of putting a greater task on my
sub-conscious self."
I wasn't so sure of myself, as that minute I had under my mattress a box
from Mammy Susan, filled to the brim with contraband food that would put
me in durance vile for at least a month if I should be caught with the
goods.
The committee on arrangements for the sheet and pillow case party had
determined that ice cream and cake should be the refreshments for the
evening. The ice cream was usually cut in very slim slices and the cake
was served in mere sample sizes, so I thought when the big ball was over
I could gather a few chosen spirits and we could dispose of Mammy
Susan's box in short order. I had not divulged to the others that this
box had arrived, knowing it would be such a delightful surprise for
them.
Mammy Susan had sent it in care of a coloured laundress who did up our
best shirt waists and collars, things we did not dare trust to the
catch-as-catch-can method of the school laundry. Shades of my honourable
ancestors! She had brought the box to the school concealed beneath the
folds of fine linen.
"Ef Miss Perlimpton ketch me she won't 'low me to set foot in this here
place agin, but you young ladies is been so kin' an' ginerous to me that
I's willin' to risk sompen fer yo' pleasure," the old woman had said as
she lifted out the carefully ironed shirt waists and then the large flat
box that had come by parcels post from Bracken. I had warned Mammy Susan
to send things in flat boxes as they were so much easier to conceal
than square ones. This one fitted nicely under my mattress. It gave the
bed a rather hiked up look in the middle, but making beds was not the
long suit of the Greshamites, so I hoped it would pass inspection,
knowing that other beds that were innocent were much lumpier than mine.
If you have never been to a sheet and pillow case party, go your first
chance, and if no one else gets up one, get it up yourself. Drape a
sheet about you in folds as Greek as you can manage, pinning the folds
at the shoulders, and then put on a pillow case like a hood. If the case
is old, cut holes in it for eyes. If you don't possess an old one, make
a cotton mask to tie around your face and pull the hood well over your
forehead. The effect is gruesome, indeed, and that night we looked like
a veritable Ku Klux Klan.
We wanted to mark ourselves in some way so that we could be told by one
another, so we put on each back in black chalk a mystic V, standing for
five, our quintette. Dum and Dee and Annie and I were almost of the same
height. I was a little shorter, but not enough to make much difference,
but Mary was a perfect chunk of a girl and when we got her draped she
looked like a snow ball.
The gymnasium, our ball room, was hung with paper pumpkin lanterns and
papier-mache skulls. "And in those holes where eyes did once inhabit"
there shone forth lights giving a very weird effect indeed. The light
was dim and the ghostly figures moving around would have frightened Mr.
Ryan, the old night watchman, to death, I am sure. But he, good man, did
not have to keep watch until eleven o'clock.
The girls came in singly and in groups, all bent on disguise. Some of
them sat against the wall, afraid that their walks would give them away,
and all were silent for the most part except for a few ghostly groans or
wails. Some one was at the piano playing the "Goblins will git yer ef
yer don't mind out." In a little while couples took the floor and began
whirling around.
"Who is that tall girl dancing with the little chunky one?" whispered
Dee to me. "I thought for a minute the chunky one was Mary, but I see
she has no V on her back."
"I can't think who is that tall here in school. There are two or three
pretty tall Seniors, and then you know there is a new Sophomore from
Texas who is a perfect bean pole, but she doesn't dance."
"Well, this one dances all right and that little square girl she is
dancing with seems lively enough. I believe I'll break in on them. You
take the big one and I'll take the chunky one," and so we did.
Dee started off leading, but I noticed they soon changed, as the short
girl seemed to prefer guiding. I always let any one guide me who will,
so my partner, who was the taller, naturally took the man's part. She
was singularly silent, although I did some occasional whispering in what
I considered a disguised voice. Annie and Dum were dancing together and
I saw Mary's square figure leading out a rather heavy-looking girl who
had up to that time been seated against the wall. As part of the
committee, we considered it our duty to dig up the wall flowers. This
one was not much of a dancer and in a moment my partner and I came a
cropper almost on top of them. We picked ourselves up and Mary,
recognizing me by my V, whispered:
"Page, this girl can't dance a little bit. I tried to lead her and she
has stepped all over me. For the love of Mike, see what you can do with
her." So we changed partners and Mary went gaily off with my very good
partner, who certainly danced better than any one I had before tried at
Gresham, and I tripped off with the heavy-looking cast-off. It wasn't so
bad. I let her guide and while she was not so very good, she was not so
very bad.
"Are you accustomed to guiding?" I said, forgetting and using my natural
voice.
"Ummm um!" came in a kind of grunt from my partner, and then in a high
squeak, "Page!" The music stopped. My partner pressed my hand so
affectionately that I wondered who she could be. I thought I could spot
any of my intimates.
"Now you know me, I think you ought to tell me who you are," I pleaded,
"and not wait for the unmasking."
"Unmasking!" she said in a strangely hoarse tone. "When?"
"Why, at nine! Didn't you hear Miss Plympton this morning at chapel?"
"Oh--Ah--Yes!" she muttered, and drew me to a seat in the corner.
I chatted away gaily. Since my partner had discovered my identity, I
might just as well make myself agreeable and I hoped to discover
hers before nine. I ran over in my mind all the big heavy girls in
school, and even the teachers. Miss Ball was rather large and Miss
Plympton--could it be Miss Plympton? I peered eagerly through the holes
at the eyes gazing into mine. Whose eyes were they? They certainly
looked very familiar. The music started again, one of the new tunes, and
I jumped up to find a partner or even take the one I still had who was
not so terribly bad, but she drew me down again in my seat, hoarsely
whispering:
"Please sit it out with me." I seemed to be in a kind of dream. They say
that one proof of transmigration of the soul is that we sometimes have a
realization of doing the same thing we have done before perhaps aeons and
aeons ago. I certainly held in my consciousness that once before some one
with eyes, brown just like the ones I could see through the slits (cut,
by the way, in a perfectly new pillow case), had begged me in much the
same tone if not so hoarse to "sit it out." I looked at the dancers. Dum
and Dee were dancing together; Mary was tearing around with the little
chunky person, who seemed to be a mate for her. I looked for the other
distinctive black V and saw that Annie was gliding around in the arms of
the tall girl with whom I had danced, who had proven such an excellent
partner.
Annie's cowl had slipped back and above her mask her pretty hair, the
colour of ripe wheat, showed plainly, making no doubt of her identity. I
looked back at the mysterious eyes and an almost uncontrollable desire
to go off into hysterics seized me. I suddenly remembered the hop at
Willoughby and how I had sat out a dance with Wink White the night he
proposed. The mystery was solved.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Stephen White!" I gasped. "I know
you now and I know that that good dancer floating around with Annie Pore
is Harvie Price, and that that little square figure with Mary Flannagan
is no other than Shorty Hawkins. Don't you know that if Miss Plympton
finds out about this that every last one of our crowd will get shipped
without a character to stand on?"
I know Wink wanted to giggle when I talked about a character to stand
on, but he was too much in awe of my anger to giggle or do anything but
plead with me to forgive him.
"You see, dear Page----"
"I am not 'dear Page' and I don't see!" I ejaculated.
"But it was this way. I came over from the University with Harvie Price
to see you, and when I got here, found out the old rules were so strict
and ridiculous that I could not get near you in any other way----"
"Well, getting near me was not necessary," I stormed.
"You had better calm yourself or you will give the whole game away,"
admonished Wink; so I did try to compose myself and speak in a whisper.
"Well, you had better get a move on you and depart as rapidly as
possible."
"Page, please don't be mad with me. I thought it would just be a lark
and you, of all persons, would think it was a good joke," and the eyes
through the holes looked very sad and pleading.
"Well, you don't know me. I like a joke as well as any one in the world,
but to get in a mixup at boarding school because of a lot of boys is not
in my line. It would be harder on Annie Pore than any of us because her
father is so severe. He would never forgive her if she should get in a
real scrape."
"But it isn't your fault. You were none of you aware of our intention of
coming."
"That makes not a whit of difference to Miss Plympton. She never
believes us, no matter what we say. It is twenty-three minutes to nine
and you had better grab Harvie and Shorty and beat it. At nine sharp if
you don't take your mask off some one will pull it off."
"Well, I don't care if they do; I am going to get a dance with the
Tucker twins if I have to be thrown out. Which is Miss Dee?"
As I had a secret desire to turn Stephen White's supposed affection for
me into the proper channel, namely, in the direction of Dee, who was
much more suited to him than I was, I could not resist the temptation of
telling him, although in doing so I certainly placed myself in a
position precarious, to say the least. I was aiding and abetting him in
this attempt to hood-wink the school of Gresham. I was also getting the
twins into the scrape with me by pointing them out to this terrible
person, a male in a girl's school. I did not think of this until I had
told Wink that all of our quintette had big black V's on our backs and
he had made for the twirling twins and broken in on them. He got Dee,
just by luck, and Dum sank on the bench by me.
"Dum, do you know who that is that just got Dee?" I asked.
"No, I have been wondering who she is and who that tall girl is with
Annie Pore."
"Well, get ready to hear something, but don't faint or scream," and I
whispered to her the names of the venturesome boys. She only gasped and
then went off into convulsions of laughter. "It is all very funny," I
continued, "but tell me, what are we going to do if Miss Plympton finds
it out?"
"But she mustn't. We must get them out of here before we unmask. Don't
you think Annie knows by this time that that is Harvie she is dancing
with, and do you think for an instant that Mary and Dee are not on?"
The music stopped just then and our quintette with the partners
collected in our corner. Annie was trembling with fright, but was
evidently having a pretty good time in spite of her fears, and Mary was
in a gale only equalled to Tom Hawkins's.
"Don't stop for adieux," I admonished. "Remember if you are caught all
the blame will fall on us, and while I like all of you well enough, I
have no desire to be expelled for the sake of having danced with you."
This was rather sobering to their gaiety, and after whispered directions
of how best to get out of the building, the three ghostly figures glided
off. I was awfully afraid that some one had overheard, but no one seemed
to be especially interested in us just then and I could but pray that we
had been unobserved.
As Wink had pressed my hand in farewell, he had begged for forgiveness
and had said he intended to see us again by hook or crook. He was to be
at Hill Top until Sunday night.
"It will be in church, then," I had declared, because I was determined
that I was not going to get into any more of a scrape than I was already
in. I was very much relieved that the boys were gone, and my anger
cooled down, although I was certainly disgusted that they had so little
considered us in this mad escapade. I don't see why the pastors and
masters of the young make it such a crime for boys and girls to have a
good time together if they are off at boarding school. How much better
it would have been if Miss Plympton had just invited the boys of Hill
Top to come to the party and let us dance all we wanted to. There is
certainly no harm in it in the summer, and why should there be harm in
it then?
At nine the masks were off and then we had the slight refreshments (very
slight), followed by rather tame dancing until the ten o'clock gong
warned us that in a few minutes lights would be out.