SEAMEN’S CHESTS
But it was usually safe to think that what Uncle Hiram planned would be
pleasant. And when Elizabeth Ann found herself in a small square dark
room, in the hold of the ship, according to Uncle Hiram--and the cellar
as Aunt Grace called it--she began to feel a thrill of excitement.
Doris had gone home with Catherine directly from the bus, and would not
come till supper time.
Uncle Hiram turned on the electric light and Elizabeth Ann saw that
Tony was purring against her legs--he had followed them down. It had
taken Tony a little time to learn to go up and down ladders, but now he
could do it beautifully.
“Oh-h, what are they?” asked Elizabeth Ann, staring.
All around the room were dark, polished boxes. They had lids and locks
and there were little keys in each lock.
“Chests,” said Uncle Hiram, enjoying her surprise. “Seamen’s chests,
my dear. And in one of them, unless I’m greatly mistaken, we’ll find
something that Roger Calendar will be proud to wear to the party.”
Uncle Hiram unlocked the lid of one chest and showed Elizabeth Ann a
neatly typewritten list pasted inside the lid.
“I did that to every chest as I packed it,” he explained. “I can tell
what is in every chest. These things are all trifles I picked up on
my voyages--things your Aunt Grace doesn’t want to keep in the first
cabin. She couldn’t keep them all up there, anyway--isn’t enough room.”
Elizabeth Ann almost forgot about Roger and the party as she turned
over the things in the different chests as Uncle Hiram unlocked one
after the other. There were strings of beads, and marvelously colored
shells and dried star fish and pebbles with flecks of shining gold in
them.
There were yards and yards of beautiful silks from far away countries
and perfumes and spices that filled the air with fragrance as soon
as the chest in which they were kept, was opened. There were bits of
carved wood, and fans made of silk, and other fans made of shell. There
were combs and ear-rings and funny lacquered shoes. There were little
ivory figures--like the ones Elizabeth Ann had seen in Aunt Isabel’s
cabinets when she visited her in New York. In fact there were so many
things tucked away in those chests that Elizabeth Ann felt as though
she might be visiting Santa Claus and looking over all the things
he must have put away. Only these were not toys--Uncle Hiram hadn’t
collected toys, though he did have a couple of odd-looking dolls made
from carved bones.
“Now this is what I had in mind for Roger,” said Uncle Hiram, unlocking
the last chest. “It may be a little large for him, but your Aunt Grace
can take a tuck or two in it. She’s handy with her needle. How do you
think Roger would like this?”
He drew out something made of dark blue silk and held it up for
Elizabeth Ann to see. There were long trousers and a jacket almost
solidly embroidered in vivid colors--red and blue and silver and gold
and green. As Elizabeth Ann looked at it, she saw that there were gold
dragons cunningly placed in the embroidery. A little silk skull cap
went with the costume and embroidered silk slippers.
“No one around here has ever seen this,” said Uncle Hiram. “I think it
will disguise Roger pretty thoroughly. I believe we have some masks
around the house--your Aunt Grace will remember where they are--just
large enough to cover your eyes. Roger might as well have one of those.”
Aunt Grace, when she saw the costume, said it would be very easy to
alter it to fit Roger. And he stopped in for a few minutes the next
Saturday morning--he didn’t dare stay long, for he was supposed to do
most of his farm work on Saturday when there was no school--and Aunt
Grace made him put on the costume while she went all over it and marked
it with pins where she was to make it smaller or shorter.
“Suppose something happens to it?” Roger kept asking nervously. “I
never wore silk clothes--they must be expensive. Suppose somebody
spills something on me?”
“Let ’em spill,” said Uncle Hiram calmly. “I’ve had that Chinese
costume for twenty years or so and it’s never done anybody a bit of
good; it’s high time it began to earn a little interest. You wear it
Roger, and if you tear it or sit down on an apple pie, I won’t say a
word.”
Aunt Grace hunted through her things and found three little
masks--“dominoes,” she called them. These went across the eyes and
Elizabeth Ann didn’t think they were much help. She was sure that
anyone would know her if she didn’t cover up more of her face than
that. But when she looked at herself in the glass with her domino on,
she was forced to admit that she didn’t look at all like Elizabeth Ann
Loring.
“Why I might be Doris,” said the astonished Elizabeth Ann. “And Doris
looks as much like me as she looks like herself. Perhaps dominoes are
good masks, after all.”
Of course Elizabeth Ann was interested in her own costume. Now that she
knew Roger was provided with something to wear, Elizabeth Ann could
plan for herself and Doris. And she decided that they would go to
Catherine’s party dressed as two little black cats.
“It’s easy,” said Elizabeth Ann when Doris said she didn’t see what
they could wear that would make them look like black cats. “Aunt Grace
will make us the suits out of that old black coat she has--she said the
other day she meant to cut it up for carpet rags. And we’ll wear white
gloves and our white canvas shoes and that will make us look as though
we had white paws.”
The old black cloth coat proved to be even better for cat costumes than
Elizabeth Ann had suspected. For it was a material called zibelene and
was covered with short fine hairs. You can see how cloth like that
would make excellent cat fur for little girls to wear to a party.
Aunt Grace cut the costumes very much like the sleeping garments some
children wear in winter--with long sleeves and legs that came down
to the ankles. She made caps, too, with little perky ears that stood
up. Elizabeth Ann and Doris had brought their white canvas shoes with
them, but getting gloves was a more serious matter. Finally Uncle Hiram
drove to town and bought them each a pair of the white canvas gloves
that farmers use for much of their work. These of course were miles
too large for the little girls, but clever Aunt Grace--who could do
practically anything with a sewing machine or her needle--ripped the
gloves apart, cut them to fit, and sewed them up again.
It did seem as though Hallowe’en would never come. The children at
school talked so much about the party that Miss Owen said she was
afraid they wouldn’t have anything to say to each other when they met
at Catherine’s house. And Miss Owen said, too, that it would be better
if they paid a little more attention to their lessons, and that she
certainly could not excuse boys and girls who didn’t make any attempt
to do their homework.
Catherine was one of these. She said she was so busy getting ready for
the party that she had no time to study at home.
“You don’t get ready for a party at night,” Mattie Harrison told her.
“You could study your homework after supper. Anyway, I don’t believe
you do a thing about the party--your mother always does every single
thing for you.”
But Catherine went right on, letting her homework go, and Miss Owen
kept her in after school, and never paid any attention when she cried.
“Orders are orders,” Uncle Hiram always said when Elizabeth Ann told
him about Catherine, who used to sit at her desk with the tears rolling
down her face while the rest of the class marched out of the school at
the end of the afternoon session.
If Catherine were kept in too late she missed the bus--which left half
an hour after school closed on clear days and fifteen minutes after on
stormy days. Miss Owen didn’t like to have anyone miss the bus, and
if she could possibly dismiss her pupils she did it in time to let
them make connections. It was a rule that all the children who had to
wait for the bus must play in the school yard, and one of the teachers
always stayed till the bus came. This was because some boys and girls
were absent-minded and would have allowed the bus to go without them if
a teacher had not been on hand to remind them to stop playing.
“I think,” said Uncle Hiram when he heard that Catherine had had to
stay in for the third afternoon in one week, “I think Miss Owen will be
glad when this party is over.”
Dave, the driver of the bus, had heard about the party, too. Catherine
talked of nothing else. And once, when she missed the bus in the
morning and had had to go home, because there wasn’t time to walk all
the distance to school, she said that Dave was ahead of his time and
that she meant to ask her father to complain to the School Board.
Elizabeth Ann told Doris that she thought perhaps it was better not
to have your mother let you do just as you pleased--for Catherine
apparently expected everyone else to let her do as she pleased. And it
wasn’t always convenient.
One morning, a few days before Hallowe’en, Elizabeth Ann and Doris were
hurrying to make the bus. They were a little late for they had waited
for Catherine as long as they dared. Finally Aunt Grace had telephoned
Catherine’s mother who said that Catherine was just eating her
breakfast. She said that Elizabeth Ann and Doris should go on and that
Catherine’s daddy would take her in the car as far as the cross-roads.
It was a cold morning--all the lovely fall weather had gone and the sky
was gray, while a keen wind blew over the fields--and Elizabeth Ann and
Doris were glad to walk fast.
“I don’t believe we’ll make the bus,” panted Doris, turning around so
that the wind wouldn’t blow in her face.
“Yes we will--come on--don’t stop--hurry!” commanded Elizabeth Ann.
“Oh--here comes Catherine!” Doris cried in some dismay. “She’s waving
to us--she wants us to wait for her, Elizabeth Ann.”
Elizabeth Ann glanced over her shoulder. Far down the road was
Catherine, not walking fast, not running, but moving along at an
ordinary pace. She was waving her hand and calling to them.
“Hurry!” shouted Elizabeth Ann. “It’s late--hurry, Catherine, or you’ll
miss the bus.”
That provoking Catherine _wouldn’t_ hurry. She continued to walk as she
always did, and she continued to call to Elizabeth Ann and Doris to
stop and wait for her.
“We might as well stop,” said Elizabeth Ann with a sigh. “She slows us
up making us turn round like this.”
They waited till Catherine caught up with them, though it was cold
standing still. Catherine didn’t seem to think she had walked slowly at
all.
“Daddy was cross and wouldn’t bring me in the car,” she explained. “He
said if I got up when Mother first called me I would have had plenty of
time to walk. I wanted to stay home to-day, but he wouldn’t let me do
that, either.”
“I hear the bus!” cried Elizabeth Ann suddenly. “We’re late we’ll have
to run.”