The Odd Behavior of the Grown-ups
Even with all its ingenious though inexpensive improvements, the
renovated cottage would probably have failed to satisfy a genuine
rent-paying family, but to the contented girls it seemed absolutely
perfect.
At last, it looked to everybody as if the long-deferred dinner party
were actually to take place. There, in readiness, were the girls, the
money, the cottage, and Mr. Black, and nothing had happened to Mrs.
Bartholomew Crane--who might easily, as Mabel suggested harrowingly,
have moved away or died at any moment during the summer.
One day, very soon after the cottage was settled, a not-at-all-surprised
Mr. Black and a very-much-astonished Mrs. Crane each received a formal
invitation to dine under its reshingled roof. Composed by all four, the
note was written by Jean, whose writing and spelling all conceded to be
better than the combined efforts of the other three. Bettie delivered
the notes with her own hand, two days before the event, and on the
morning of the party she went a second time to each house to make
certain that neither of the expected guests had forgotten the date.
"Forget!" exclaimed Mr. Black, standing framed in his own doorway. "My
dear little girl, how _could_ I forget, when I've been saving room for
that dinner ever since early last spring? Nothing, I assure you, could
keep me away or even delay me. I have eaten a _very_ light breakfast, I
shall go entirely without luncheon--"
"I wouldn't do that," warned Bettie. "You see it's our first dinner
party and something _might_ go wrong. The soup might scorch--"
"It wouldn't have the heart to," said Mr. Black. "_No_ soup could be so
unkind."
Of course the cottage was the busiest place imaginable during the days
immediately preceding the dinner party. The girls had made elaborate
plans and their pockets fairly bulged with lists of things that they
were to be sure to remember and not on any account to forget. Then the
time came for them to begin to do all the things that they had planned
to do, and the cottage hummed like a hive of bees.
First the precious seven dollars and a half, swelled by some mysterious
process to seven dollars and fifty-seven cents, had to be withdrawn from
the bank, the most imposing building in town with its almost oppressive
air of formal dignity. The rather diffident girls went in a body to get
the money and looked with astonishment at the extra pennies.
"That's the interest," explained the cashier, noting with quiet
amusement the puzzled faces.
"Oh," said Jean, "we've had that in school, but this is the first time
we've ever seen any."
"We didn't suppose," supplemented Bettie, "that interest was real money.
_I_ thought it was something like those x-plus-y things that the boys
have in algebra."
"Or like mermaids and goddesses," said Mabel.
"She means myths," interpreted Marjory.
"I see," said the cashier. "Perhaps you like real, tangible interest
better than the kind you have in school."
"Oh, we do, we do!" cried the four girls.
"After this," confided Bettie, "it will be easier to study about."
Then, with the money carefully divided into three portions, placed in
three separate purses, which in turn were deposited one each in Jean's,
Marjory's, and Bettie's pockets, Mabel having flatly declined to burden
herself with any such weighty responsibility, the four went to purchase
their groceries.
The smiling clerks at the various shops confused them a little at first
by offering them new brands of breakfast foods with strange, oddly
spelled names, but the girls explained patiently at each place that they
were giving a dinner party, not a breakfast, and that they wanted
nothing but the things on their list. It took time and a great deal of
discussion to make so many important purchases, but finally the
groceries were all ordered.
Next the little housekeepers went to the butcher's to ask for a chicken.
"Vat kind of schicken you vant?" asked the stout, impatient German
butcher.
Jean looked at Bettie, Bettie looked at Marjory, and Marjory, although
she knew it was hopeless, looked at Mabel.
"Vell?" said the busy butcher, interrogatively.
"One to cook--without feathers," gasped Jean.
"A spring schicken?"
"Is that--is that better than a summer one?" faltered Bettie,
cautiously. "You see it's summer now."
"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, seized with a bright thought, "an August
one--"
"Here, Schon," shouted the busy butcher to his assistant, "you pring
oudt three-four schicken. You can pick von oudt vile I vaits on dese
odder gostomer."
"I think," said Jean, indicating one of the fowls John had produced for
her inspection, "that that's about the right size. It's so small and
smooth that it ought to be tender."
"I wouldn't take that one, Miss," cautioned honest John, under his
breath, "it looks to me like a little old bantam rooster. Leave it to me
and I'll find you a good one."
To his credit, John was as good as his word.
The little housekeepers felt very important indeed, when, later in the
day, a procession of genuine grocery wagons, drawn by flesh-and-blood
horses, drew up before the cottage door to deliver all kinds of
really-truly parcels. They had not quite escaped the breakfast foods
after all, because each consignment of groceries was enriched by several
sample packages; enough altogether, the girls declared joyously, to
provide a great many noon luncheons.
Of course all the parcels had to be unwrapped, admired, and sorted
before being carefully arranged in the pantry cupboard, which had never
before found itself so bountifully supplied. Then, for a busy half-day,
cook books and real cooks were anxiously consulted; for, as Mabel said,
it was really surprising to see how many different ways there were to
cook even the simplest things.
Jean and Bettie were to do the actual cooking. The other two, in
elaborately starched caps and aprons of spotless white (provided Mabel,
though this seemed doubtful, could keep hers white), were to take turns
serving the courses. The first course was to be tomato soup; it came in
a can with directions outside and cost fifteen cents, which Mabel
considered cheap because of the printed cooking lesson.
"If they'd send printed directions with their raw chickens and
vegetables," said she, "maybe folks might be able to tell which recipe
belonged to which thing."
"Well," laughed Marjory, "_some_ cooks don't have to read a whole page
before they discover that directions for making plum pudding don't help
them to make corned-beef hash. You always forget to look at the top of
the page."
"Never mind," said Jean, "she found a good recipe for salad dressing."
"That's true," said Marjory, "but before you use it you'd better make
sure that it isn't a polish for hardwood floors. There, don't throw the
book at me, Mabel--I won't say another word."
The three mothers and Aunty Jane, grown suddenly astonishingly obliging,
not only consented to lend whatever the girls asked for, but actually
thrust their belongings upon them to an extent that was almost
overwhelming. The same impulse seemed to have seized them all. It
puzzled the girls, yet it pleased them too, for it was such a decided
novelty to have six parents (even the fathers appeared interested) and
one aunt positively vying with one another to aid the young cottagers
with their latest plan. The girls could remember a time, not so very far
distant, when it was almost hopeless to ask for even such common things
as potatoes, not to mention eggs and butter. Now, however, everything
was changed. Aunty Jane would provide soup spoons, napkins, and a
tablecloth--yes, her very best short one. Marjory could hardly believe
her ears, but hastily accepted the cloth lest the offer should be
withdrawn. The girls, having set their hearts on using the "Frog that
would a-wooing go" plates for the escalloped salmon (to their minds
there seemed to be some vague connection between frogs and fishes), were
compelled to decline offers of all the fish plates belonging to the four
families. The potato salad, garnished with lettuce from the cottage
garden, was to be eaten with Mrs. Bennett's best salad forks The
roasted chicken was not to be entrusted to the not-always-reliable
cottage oven but was to be cooked at the Tuckers' house and carved with
Mr. Mapes's best game set. Mrs. Bennett's cook would make a pie--yes,
even a difficult lemon pie with a meringue on top, promised Mrs.
Bennett.
Then there were to be butter beans out of the cottage garden, and sliced
cucumbers from the green-grocer's because Mrs. Crane had confessed to a
fondness for cucumbers. There was one beet in the garden almost large
enough to be eaten; that, too, was to be sacrificed. The dessert had
been something of a problem. It had proved so hard to decide this matter
that they decided to compromise by adding both pudding and ice cream to
the Bennett pie. A brick of ice cream and some little cakes could easily
be purchased ready-made from the town caterer, with the change they had
left. Thoughts of their money's giving out no longer troubled them, for
had not Mabel's surprising father told them that if they ran short they
need not hesitate to ask him for any amount within reason?
"I declare," said bewildered Mabel, "I can't see what has come over Papa
and Mamma. Do I look pale, or anything--as if I might be going to die
before very long?"
"No," said Marjory, "you certainly don't; but I've wondered if Aunty
Jane could be worried about _me_. I never knew her to be so
generous--why, it's getting to be a kind of nuisance! Do you s'pose
they're going to insist on doing _everything_?"
"Well," said Bettie, "they've certainly helped us a lot. I don't know
_why_ they've done it, but I'm glad they have. You see, we _must_ have
everything perfectly beautiful because Mr. Black is rich and is
accustomed to good dinners, and Mrs. Crane is poor and never has any
very nice ones. If our people keep all their promises, it can't help
being a splendid dinner."
The three mothers and Aunty Jane and all the fathers did keep their
promises. They, too, wanted the dinner to be a success, for they knew,
as all the older residents of the little town knew--and as the children
themselves might have known if the story had not been so old and their
parents had been in the habit of gossiping (which fortunately they were
not)--that there was a reason why Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were the last
two persons to be invited to a tete-a-tete dinner party. Yet, strangely
enough, there was an equally good reason why no one wanted to interfere
and why everyone wanted to help.