An Unexpected Crop of Dandelions
In spite of the prospect of losing her, the last week of Miss Blossom's
stay was a delightful one to the girls because so many pleasant things
happened. The best of all concerned the cottage dining-room.
This room had proved the hardest spot in the house to make attractive,
for it seemed to resist all efforts to make a well-furnished room of it.
Most of the faded paper was loose and much of it had dropped off in
patches during the time that the cottage was vacant, showing the ugly,
dark, painted wall underneath. It was only too evident that the pictures
that the girls had fastened up carefully with pins had been put up for
purposes of concealment, the ceiling was stained and dingy, and the rug
was far too small to cover the floor where some industrious former
occupant had daubed paint of various gaudy hues while trying, perhaps,
to find the right shade for the woodwork.
Moreover, what little furniture there was in the dining-room showed very
plainly that it had not been intended originally for dining-room use;
the buffet, in particular, proclaimed loudly in big black letters that
it was nothing but a soap box, and Bettie's best efforts could not make
anything else of it. Now that the day for the long-postponed dinner
party was actually set, the girls' attention was more than ever directed
toward the forlorn appearance of the little dining-room.
"Dear me," said Bettie, one day when the five friends, seated around the
table, were cutting out pictures for a wonderful scrap-book for the
little lame boy whom Miss Blossom had discovered living near one of the
churches, "I do wish this dining-room didn't look so sort of bedroomy."
"Yes," said Jean, "I've tried putting the buffet in every corner and
all around the walls, and it _won't_ look like anything but a wooden
box."
"I tried covering it with a gathered curtain," said Mabel, "but that
made it look so like a washstand that I took it off again."
"Why," exclaimed Miss Blossom, "you've given me a beautiful idea! I
believe we could make a splendid sideboard out of that piano box that's
so in our way on the back porch. We'd just have to saw the ends down a
little, nail on some boards, paint it some plain, dark color, and spread
a towel over the top, and we'd have a beautiful Flemish oak sideboard.
I'll buy the can of paint."
"I'll do the painting," said Jean. "I helped Mother paint our kitchen
floor, so I know a little about it."
"That would be lovely. I've been thinking, too, that it would be a good
idea to fix a little shelf under this window to hold your petunia and
these two geraniums that are suffering so for sunshine. I think I could
make it from the boards in that soap box."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Bettie. "I don't believe there's _anything_ you
don't know how to do."
The piano box, transformed by Miss Blossom and the four girls into a
very good imitation of a Flemish oak sideboard, did indeed make such an
imposing piece of furniture that the rest of the room looked shabbier
than ever by contrast.
"I'm afraid," said Miss Blossom, surveying the effect with an air of
comical dismay, "that the rest of our dining-room really looks worse
than it did before; it's like trying to wear a new hat with an old gown.
But I'm proud of our handiwork."
"Yes," said Jean, "it's a great deal more like a sideboard than it is
like a piano box."
"It's the sideboardiest sideboard I ever saw," said Mabel, "but it's
certainly too fine for this room."
"Never mind," said cheerful Bettie. "We'll let Mr. Black sit so he can
see the sideboard, and we'll have Mrs. Crane face the geraniums on that
cunning shelf. If their eyes begin to wander around the room we'll just
call their attention to the things we want them to see. When Mamma
entertains the sewing society she always invites the first one that
comes to sit in the chair over the hole in the sitting-room rug so the
others won't notice it. If we catch Mr. Black looking at the ceiling
we'll say: 'Oh, Mr. Black, did you notice the flowers on the
sideboard?'"
Everybody laughed at Bettie's comical idea. This desperate measure,
however, was not needed, for one afternoon, the day after the sideboard
was finished, something happened, something lovelier than the girls had
ever even dreamed _could_ happen.
It was only three o'clock, yet there was Miss Blossom coming home two
whole hours earlier than usual; her white-haired father was with her
and under his arm in a long parcel were seven rolls of wall paper.
"My contribution to the cottage," said Mr. Blossom, laying the bundle at
Bettie's feet and smiling pleasantly at the row of girls on the
doorstep.
"It's paper for the dining-room," explained Miss Blossom. "We happened
to pass a store, on our way to work this noon, where they were
advertising a sale of odd rolls of very nice paper at only five cents a
roll. There were two rolls that were just right for the ceiling, and
five rolls for the side wall. It seemed just exactly the right thing for
Dandelion Cottage, so we couldn't help buying it."
"It would have been wicked," said Mr. Blossom, cutting the string about
the bundle, "not to buy such suitable paper at such a ridiculous price."
"Oh! oh!" cried the delighted girls, as Mr. Blossom held up a roll for
inspection. "It might have been made for this house!"
"Dandelion blossoms in yellow, with such lovely soft green leaves," said
Bettie, "and such a lovely, light, creamy background. Oh! what's that?"
"That's the border," replied Miss Blossom. "See how graceful the pattern
is, and how saucily those dandelions hold their heads. Show them the
ceiling paper, Father."
"Oh!" cried Mabel, "just picked-off dandelions scattered all over an
ocean of milk--how pretty!"
"We'll have the Village Improvement Society after us," laughed Marjory.
"They don't allow a dandelion to show its head."
"I love dandelions," said Miss Blossom; "real ones, I mean; they're such
gay, cheerful things and such a beautiful color."
"I love them, too," said Jean, "because, you know, they paid our rent
for us."
"But," said Mabel, "I'm thankful we haven't got to dig all these
dandelions."
"Now," said Miss Blossom, "we must go right to work. If everybody will
help, Father and I will put it on for you. You needn't be afraid to
trust us, because last spring we papered our two biggest rooms, and they
really looked _almost_ professional except for one strip that Father got
upside-down; but your dining-room will be in no danger on that score,
for Father never makes the same mistake twice. Jean, you and Mabel can
move all the furniture except the table and sideboard into the
kitchen--we'll have to stand on the table. Bettie, take down all the
pictures. Father, you can be trimming the ceiling paper here on the
sideboard while Marjory starts a fire in the kitchen stove so I can have
hot water for my paste. We'll have our wall covered with dandelions in
just no time!"
"Now," said Mr. Blossom, when the furniture was out and the pictures
were all down, "we must dig the soil up well or our dandelions won't
grow. Everybody must tear as much as she can of this old paper off the
wall; it's so ragged it comes off very easily."
"The roof used to leak," said Bettie, "but my brother Rob unrolled some
tin cans and nailed them over the place where the truly shingles are
gone, and it never leaked a mite the last four times it rained."
"The plaster seems fairly good," said Mr. Blossom. "I could mend these
holes with a little plaster of Paris if some obliging young lady would
run with this dime to the drugstore for ten cents' worth."
"I'll go," said Mabel. "I don't think I like peeling walls."
"Mabel," said Miss Blossom, "isn't really fond of work, though I notice
that she usually does her share."
Everybody helped to mend the cracks, and everybody watched with
breathless interest to see the first long strip, upheld by Mr. Blossom
and guided by Miss Blossom and the cottage broom, go into place.
"Wouldn't it be awful," whispered Mabel, "if it shouldn't stick?"
But it did stick, smooth and flat, and the paper was even prettier on
the wall than it had been in the roll.
"A side strip next, Father, so we can see how it's going to look,"
pleaded Miss Blossom. "Remember, we're just children."
At five o'clock, when half of the ceiling and one side of the wall were
finished, the front door was opened abruptly.
"Hi there!" said Mr. Black, putting his head in at the dining-room door.
"Why don't you listen when I ring your bell? Is that dinner of mine
ready? I'm losing a pound a day."
"No," said Bettie, jumping down from her perch on the sideboard, "but it
will be next Friday. We're getting it ready just as fast as ever we can.
We're even papering the dining-room for the occasion."
"Well," said Mr. Black, "I just stopped in to say that unless you could
give me that dinner this very minute, I shall have to go hungry for the
next five weeks."
"Oh!" cried Bettie, in dismay, "why?"
"Because I'm going to Washington tonight by the six o'clock train and I
shall be gone a whole month--perhaps longer."
"Oh, dear," cried Bettie, "we just _couldn't_ have you tonight. We're
papering the dining-room, and besides we haven't a single thing to eat
but some stale cake that Mrs. Pike gave us."
"I strongly suspect," said Mr. Black, smiling over Bettie's head at Mr.
Blossom, "that you don't really _want_ me to dinner."
"Oh, we do, we do," assured Bettie, earnestly, "but we just _can't_ have
company tonight. If you'll just let us know exactly when you're coming
home, you'll find a beautiful dinner ready for you."
"All right," said Mr. Black, "I'll telegraph. I'll say: 'My dear Miss
Bettykins, of Dandelion Cottage: It will give me great pleasure to dine
with you tomorrow--or would you rather have me say the day after
tomorrow?--evening. Yours most devotedly and-so-forth.'"
"Yes, yes," cried Bettie, "that will be all right, but you must give us
three days to get ready in."
After all, however, it was Mabel that sent the telegram, and it was a
very different one.