UNINVITED GUESTS
Katharine escaped the chiding she deserved because, when she reëntered
the house, Miss Eunice was engaged with company and Susanna was
preparing a tray of refreshments to be served the guests. Montgomery
escaped because Madam supposed he had been at The Maples where so much
of his time was now passed. He went supperless to bed, but Katharine,
most guilty of all delinquents, fared sumptuously upon a portion of the
dainties from the housekeeper's "company tray." The Turner trio of
culprits ate wedges of cold pumpkin pie, eaten standing by the kitchen
sink, and went to bed to dream that all the world was made of pumpkins
which it was their destiny to consume before a general illumination
began. At least, that was what Martha dreamed, and, having roused the
other pair to relate it to them, they were sleepy enough to believe they
had dreamed it, too.
Other children--But why prolong the story? Many of the pumpkin artists
had reason to remember that night for some time to come; yet not one
ever admitted that they had not found their fun outweigh their
punishment.
Some days previous Katharine had put a very mild request to Aunt Eunice,
in the words:
"Aunty, would you mind if I had a little Hallowe'en party? Out in the
barn, where it wouldn't be any trouble to anybody?"
And the lady, always glad to make her young charge happy, had replied:
"Why, no, dear. Certainly, you may have one if you wish."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, you darling Aunty Eunice!" springing up to
hug her guardian ecstatically. Then, with her young cheek against the
older one: "And would it be too much to ask--Deacon Meakin to--to stay
away that day?"
"Why, Katharine, that couldn't be. Besides giving him offence, how could
we spare him?"
"Monty and I could do the chores. Bob Turner could milk. Bob's a
first-rate milker, Martha says so."
"Well, well. Maybe it can be arranged. I'll see."
"Because, Aunt Eunice, it's to be such a beautiful benefit to--Oh, I
forgot. But if he could stay at home just once; he's so what Widow calls
'pernickity,' and he says children ought to be born 'growed up.' They
can't be that, can they? So I do think, I just do think they might be
let to have some nice times without folks scolding and acting hateful."
"The deacon doesn't mean to be hateful, Katy. We'll see."
Fortune favored the child as it so often did. After a particularly
wearisome contest of wills between the original hired man and his
successor, the deacon resigned his position and left in a huff. A
neighboring youth was sent for to take his place, but, as far from being
a hindrance to Katharine's schemes, proved her very best ally.
Montgomery knew William well, and his wheedling, if stammering, tongue
soon persuaded the young man that in furthering the success of the party
he was furthering his employer's also.
In due time every boy and girl in the township received a laboriously
written invitation, and all accepted, of course. This was understood
without the trouble of replies.
Even the schoolmaster was not forgotten, though he waited until school
was dismissed before he opened his neatly folded bit of paper, and read:
"The favor of your presence is requested at the Big Barn of
Miss Eunice Maitland at The Maples, on the evening of October
31st, to a Hallowe'en Corkis. At seven o'clock by the church
steeple. Please bring your teaspoon with you.
"Yours respectfully,
"KATHARINE MAITLAND."
This unique invitation was the joint production of Katharine and
Montgomery. The first part was hers, recalled from wedding-cards often
seen at her old home in the city; the latter part was due to Monty's
forethought. Katharine had never heard of a "corkis;" but, by way of
dabbling in politics through loiterings at the village store, the boy
had acquired some technical terms, and insisted that this was what best
befitted their case. As he could not spell the word, and she couldn't
find it in the dictionary, though she searched all the "Cor" columns
through, she adopted phonetic spelling with the above result. Also,
since there was as much variety in "time" as there was in clocks, the
guests were advised to regulate their arrivals by the biggest one
visible. As to the teaspoon clause--that was positively necessary. "How
could a boy eat ice-cream without a spoon? And how could anybody, even
Aunt Eunice, who had a trunk full of silver, lend a body spoons enough
to go around, admitting that one dared ask for them? For if everybody
came who was asked, and everybody certainly would since they hadn't been
polite enough to send regrets (even before the cards were out), what
would a body do, I should like to know?"
As there was altogether too much body in this argument for Montgomery he
yielded the point and waited the great event with what patience he
might. Not so much patience was required, however, since there was much
labor to accomplish. William hitched up the team, thoughtfully taking an
opportunity when Miss Maitland had gone to pay a visit to the distant
Mansion, and brought the field full of Jack-o'-lanterns up to the barn;
into which, carefully keeping the sound sides of the pumpkins toward the
kitchen windows and Susanna's eyes, he conveyed them. Then the doors
were closed and the decorating began.
"C-c-can't make 'em hang," lamented Montgomery, after a few moments'
unsuccessful effort.
"Course not. That string's too light. Wait. I'll fetch something," said
Katharine, as decorator in charge. Then she sped into the house and
borrowed Susanna's clothes-line.
"My clothes-line, child? What on earth for?"
"Oh, you'll see sometime. I sha'n't hurt it!" returned the eager girl,
skipping away.
The widow was glad to have "the children" out of the way for the time
being. She, also, was planning a "surprise," for Eunice had told her of
Katharine's "little Hallowe'en party," and the good housekeeper
determined that not a single young guest should return home after that
event without carrying a report of a fine repast.
As she said to Moses, when fixing him up for the day:
"It does seem good after all our worries lately to do somethin' just
plain plumb foolish, like lettin' young ones have a nice time. Me an'
Eunice, we have more on our minds 'an we let on to you, but I'm goin' to
forget 'em."
"Forgettin' your mind won't be no great job, nor loss nuther. Wouldn't
be much matter if 'twasn't never found again," he retorted,
half-facetiously, and half-vexed that, as she hinted, there were still
confidences withheld from him.
Susanna ignored his playfulness, and went on as if he had not
interrupted:
"I'm goin' to make jumbles, an' little frosted cakes, an' teeny-tiny riz
biscuit, an' raisin-loaf. I've got a ham on b'ilin', an'--my suz! It
most makes me feel a dozen years younger, just the mere idee of havin' a
childern's party. We hain't had none sence Johnny run away, an'--"
"Oh, hum! An' here I must lie like a log o' wood an' no share in it. Me
that always thought more of young ones 'an you did. Anyhow, I don't see
what great call _you_ got to mix up in it. S'pose you expect to be
invited, don't you? What you goin' to wear? White with pink ribbons,
like all the other little girls?" demanded the imprisoned man.
"Well, I hain't thought much about my clothes, but I did lay out to wear
my common sense an' trim it with a wreath o' good nature, an' maybe a
sprig of patience fastenin' the hull. Never mind, Moses. Maybe you'll
get more share in it 'an I shall. Somethin' may happen to keep me from
enjoyin' myself any more'n you are this minute. An'--my suz! I smell
that ham water b'ilin' over this instant. An'--what next! There's Kitty
Keehoty comin' out the tool-house with that roll o' grapevine wire that
you put away so careful--an' it's most more'n she can lug. But she'd
tackle it. She'd tackle it if it was twicet as heavy. She's got more
ambition an' gumption than ary young one I ever knowed. My suz! She
couldn't carry it, after all, so she's put it down an' is draggin' it.
She looks a pictur'! Her hair blowin' all 'round her head, her cheeks
like roses, her feet fairly dancin' with happiness, her eyes like stars.
Well, a body'd ought to take a bit o' trouble, now an' then, whilst
they're little. It does take such a mere mite to make childern pleased.
She--"
Poor Uncle Moses could bear no more. There had never been so many
interesting things happening as since he had been in bed, unable to take
part in them. Within his age-worn body beat the heart of a little child,
and he was nearly frantic, imagining what might be going on beyond those
closed barn doors and he shut out.
"Clear out, Susanna Sprigg. Get away from that winder. Don't ye let me
hear another word about that party. If a miracle happens so's I can go
to it, all right. If not--the sooner you look after that ham the
better."
Susanna turned from the pane, saying quite gently:
"I don't know as the days of miracles is past. Seems if there was some
been done right here in Marsden township. I am sorry for ye, Moses. I'd
almost ruther stay to home myself than have you miss the fun. Maybe you
won't. Maybe a fresh miracle will be done. Maybe I shall see you the
chief sinner in the synagogue, I mean the most invited comp'ny--My suz!
You know what I mean better'n I can say it. I'll fetch you up a
sandwich, soon's that ham is cooked."
She hurried below, and the unhappy hired man turned his face from the
light and went to sleep, or tried to, though the odors of good things
wafted to him from the kitchen beneath kept his thoughts on the
disturbing party and angered him against the two children he loved.
"Should ha' thought they'd waited till I was up an' 'round again.
'Twouldn't have hurt 'em an' would ha' been showing some decent feelin'
fer me," he grumbled. And little did the old man dream that he was,
indeed, the very heart and centre of the whole festivity!
Oh, what a day that was! The toilers in the barn sent in word that they
were too busy to stop for any dinner, and Susanna retorted that she was
herself fully too busy to cook it for them. Everybody had a slice of
bread and butter and a glass of milk, which didn't take a minute to
dispose of. Even the mistress, who had returned, fared thus.
That afternoon Reuben Smith tooted up to Miss Maitland's front gate and
handed out a paste-board box, very large and weighty, which Susanna
hastily received and carried into the house. There it was hurriedly
opened behind closed doors by Aunt Eunice, with her housemate to assist,
and was found to contain a new suit of men's clothing, with all
accessories needful.
"I'll carry them to poor Nathan at once, and make sure he puts them on.
Then, if you're willing, we'll light a fire in your stove and burn all
his old rags," said the mistress.
"Not alone, Eunice Maitland, not alone!" cried the old housekeeper, who
wouldn't have missed this business if all the jumbles she had made had
burned themselves to a crisp. Fortunately, they were out of the way, and
though she had mixed dough for raisin-cake she hadn't yet put in "the
lightenin'." "If we start to oncet there ain't nothin' to harm, an' the
childern's so busy they'll never notice. Moses is asleep. Let's go
right away. My suz! Seems if I couldn't wait to make that poor feller
into a decent man!"
As excited and eager over their own secret as the young folks over
theirs, they seized bonnets and wraps, and, carrying the box between
them, slipped unobserved from the house in the direction of the woods.
Thus it chanced that they did not see what an unusual thing the
stage-driver did; how that, leaving Miss Maitland's parcel at the front
of the house, he drove by a roundabout lane to the back door of the
barn, and there set down, with William's help, two barrel-like tubs,
weighty with broken ice and carefully covered with bits of old carpet.
Similar tubs had sometimes been brought to Marsden by the same
messenger, but only for such occasions as the Fourth of July or the
Sunday-school picnic. Never before for any private function, and the
news of the present arrival spread swiftly through the village,
suggesting to interested parents that, though themselves uninvited, it
might be as well to go along and see what the children were doing!
And it came at last! The delightful hour, the culmination of all this
preparation. At last, at last, the wheezy clock in the church steeple
announced that it was seven o'clock!
Then from out the many homes of Marsden and its by-ways issued the eager
guests. Girls in white frocks; boys in Sunday suits; all uncomfortable
in freshly donned winter flannels--since this was to be a sort of
out-doors party and there must be no afterclaps of croup; and elders in
their second-best attire, worn with an affected indifference of its just
happening so.
Said Mrs. Turner to Mrs. Clackett: "Course we wasn't asked. It's just a
children's party that Johnny Maitland's little girl is giving as a sort
of youngsters' 'infair.' Pa and me thought 'twas better to come along
and see the children got there safe, them not being used to going out
evenings."
To which her neighbor replied: "Yes, we feel that way about our girls
and boy. But I confess, we're sort of curious to know what the 'Corkis'
part of the invitation means. Clackett, he says he guesses Katy meant
'caucus,' but that don't throw no more light on the matter, if it does.
What on earth a lot of young ones want with a 'caucus,' beats me. But
here we are, and--My! Isn't it pretty?"
Pretty it was, and far, far more than pretty. To these unused eyes such
a scene as might have come from fairy-land. Even to Aunt Eunice, newly
admitted, the old barn seemed an unknown spot; and she sat enthroned
upon her seat of honor--an oat-bin transformed by cushions of straw and
sheaves of corn--amazed but equally delighted. The whole great structure
was ablaze with radiance. Susanna's clothes-line and Moses' grapevine
wire supported grinning Jacks innumerable. The glowing yellow heads
looked down from rafter and beam, peeped from the stalls, dangled from
stanchions. Between them gleamed also oddly shaped Chinese lanterns, and
these were a form of illumination wholly new to that inland village.
There were sheaves and vines and branches everywhere, and those who
observed could scarcely believe that the whole transformation, save and
beyond the carving of the pumpkins, had been wrought by three pairs of
young hands.
What cared happy Kitty Keehoty that of all her crisp ten dollars there
remained but thirteen cents? Hadn't they paid for all these shining
candles, those tubs of cream, the grotesque lanterns which her new
friends so admired, and the heaps of candy on the table at the far end
of the great floor? The table was improvised by a couple of planks laid
upon barrels and covered by a cloth borrowed from the linen closet. It
would have been covered with nothing else, save the candy and a pile of
wooden plates for the cream, had not Susanna produced her own
surprise--in such stores of cakes and sandwiches and toothsome dainties
as made the small giver of the function open her own eyes in amazement.
Oh, how delightful it all was! And didn't the pleasure in so many faces
more than pay for the ten dollars spent and the proudly weary widow's
hours at an oven door?
But how they came! So fast, so eager, so cordially willing to be
pleased! All the young guests who had been bidden by such a painful
outlay of pen and ink, and all their fathers and their mothers, "their
uncles and their aunts and their cousins!" All the merrier, all the
better, all the surer of success! For the best was yet to come. The
delicious, ambitious, loving secret scheme which had originated in the
teeming brain of Kitty Keehoty, and, aided and abetted by Montgomery,
her knight, was now to be divulged.
"My--suz!" quoth Susanna, dismayed by the vast proportions of
Katharine's "little party," "however--shall I give such a
multitude--even a bite apiece?"
"I'll help!" cried Mrs. Clackett, quite understanding "a bite apiece"
meant no personal violence. "I've lots of stuff baked at home. I'll
fetch a basket of it in a jiffy."
"I, too!" echoed Mrs. Turner, and the pair set briskly homeward in
neighborly kindness. Other matrons, not to be outdone, also disappeared
from the assembly for a brief time; and soon thereafter William was
called upon to improvise another table, till both were groaning with the
weight of good things.
"My! It's most like a Sunday-school picnic, ain't it?" exclaimed the
village seamstress, who at seventy years still had the same innocent
enjoyment in such affairs as she had had at seven. "But, hush!
Somethin's a-doin'!"
Something was certainly "a-doing!" There was a great bustle and stir at
the double doors and in came Deacon Meakin, William, Mr. Clackett, and
the schoolmaster, carrying a cot between them on which lay Moses Jones,
at last minus his ball and chain, and feeling as if he didn't know
himself--so utterly amazed was he. Amid a sudden outringing cheer the
cot was carefully deposited in an open space that had been kept for it,
close beside that throne where Eunice still sat smiling in gracious
hospitality.
The fresh excitement incident to this arrival had scarcely died, when
Madam Sturtevant appeared, with her small handmaid in train. The lady
had been somewhat doubtful about accepting the invitation for herself,
having been informed by her grandson that, outside The Maples' family,
she was the only grown-up so favored except the schoolmaster; and she
was more than doubtful for Alfaretta. For a time the anxious girl's fate
hung in the balance. It did not strike Madam as just the correct thing
to take a servant--Alfy was really that, of course--to a Maitland party.
Yet the child had just as good blood in her veins as many others who
would attend, even if her lot in life were less fortunate. Besides, was
it right to disturb her quiet habits by such frivolity? While the matter
was pending, Alfaretta could only calm her perturbed mind by gathering
every belated daisy she could find and testing her fortune upon its
white petals. "Shall I be let to go? Shall I not?" Mostly, the daisies
said: "I shall!" Yet it was old Whitey who, after all, decided the
question.
That mild-eyed bovine had the spirit of an Arab steed. Had she been born
a colt and not a calf she would have "pricked it o'er the plain" with
the best of her race; but being merely a somewhat venerable cow, she
could only wander. In the wide fields still surrounding the Mansion
there was sufficient pasturage for many cows, and certainly too much for
one; so there was not the slightest reason why she should trespass upon
village dooryards except the fact that she delighted to do so. Broken
gates, which there was nobody to repair, made wandering easy; and it may
be that she had, in part, acquired the habit in the days of her youth,
when Verplanck Sturtevant had 'tended her as his son did now. Both
masters were far better content elsewhere than at home, and Whitey fully
shared their preferences. She had wandered again, some two days since,
and had not returned at nightfall, as was her habit. Therefore,
remembering that at the "Hallowe'en Corkis" there would be many children
assembled, and that children "know everything" of village happenings,
Madam had come, meaning to ask for news.
So the daisies had it, truly; and to the young bond-maid the longed-for
happiness had been given.
When Madam had been assigned a place beside Miss Eunice, and the murmur
of voices had recommenced, somebody struck a bell and every ear and eye
became attentive. Katharine did not know whether this were the approved
method of bringing a "Corkis" to silence, but it was one that served in
school and proved to do so here. While the silence lasted and the
crowding guests craned their necks forward, she was seen to lead, push,
or in some manner propel a reluctant boy toward a ladder resting against
the hay-mow and in full sight of most.
The boy was Montgomery, of course, and he was positively shaking with
fright; but the girl whispered something in his ear--"For Uncle Mose!"
and he rallied to his duty. Tossing off her guiding hand, he ran to the
ladder, mounted it half-way, and faced about upon the multitude. He had
been well tutored. He fixed his eyes not upon the faces below but at an
exalted roof-beam, and addressing that began:
"Girls and boys, gentlemen and ladies: You have been invited here
to-night to enjoy yourselves and to make somebody else enjoy himself.
That somebody is Uncle Moses Jones, whom we all love, and who has had
lots of trouble and broken bones lately. Next Tuesday is going to be
election when our fathers and mothers vote, or--or--fathers do, anyway.
If we ask our folks to do things they generally do them. What I ask now
is that every one of you shall ask your father to vote for Uncle Mose to
be constable, and I now nomernate him to be a constable. All in favor of
his being constable--say 'aye!'"
Amid the uproar of "ayes" that followed Monty jumped headlong from his
rostrum and would have run straight to his grandmother, had not Kitty
Keehoty caught him midway and hugged him her stoutest, crying: "Oh, you
splendidest brave boy! You did it, you did it! You never tripped once.
You never stuttered a single stutter from beginning to end! Who says you
sha'n't be President some day, an' be nomernated in a grown-up corkis?
But--my sake, Montgomery Sturtevant! You forgot the most important part.
I'll have to say that myself, 'cause it's that will count. That will be
the promise."
Another stroke of Aunt Eunice's table-bell and a white-clad little
figure was in Monty's place upon the ladder, holding up her hand for
close attention. Without preliminary she informed the audience that
there was one thing had been forgotten, and that was "the cranberries."
"Right by the head of the table is a basket of cranberries. _A cranberry
is a promise._ There's another empty basket beside the full one.
Everybody, girl or boy, who wants Uncle Moses to be constable must take
a cranberry out one basket and drop it into the other; and--_those who
don't drop cranberries can't have--ice-cream!_"
Squire Pettijohn had come--in a case of general town interest as this
seemed to be it was important the great man should be present--and it
was he who cried so loudly: "Hear! Hear!" and it was he, also, who
started the laughter which followed, and pinched Kate's cheek as she
passed him, saying something about "intimidation" and "lobbying," at
which there was more laughter--Katy wondering why.
But the laughter did not continue long, since it was surely now time for
supper; and, having swiftly decided that however little she might like
him, yet the Squire's influence might be a powerful factor in carrying
out this secretly designed plan of the children's, Miss Eunice was just
descending from her oat-bin throne to ask him to open the feast, when
another slight commotion occurred near the door. A woman screamed, and
every eye turned upon two tardy and uninvited guests, who, leading each
other as it were, now entered the scene.
Whitey, the cow, and Nate Pettijohn--tramp!