So Barry was invited up to the Hall to dinner, and found himself so
instantly swept into the plan that he had no time to be self-conscious.
Dinner was served on the side porch, and the sunlight filtered across
the white cloth, and turned the garden into a place of enchantment.
When Billy and the small girls had seized two cookies and two peaches
apiece, and retired to the lawn to enjoy them, he and Sidney sat
talking on in the pleasant dusk.
"You've asked eight, so far," he said, as she was departing for the
office an hour or so after dinner was finished, "but do you think
that's all?"
"Oh, it positively must be!" Sidney said virtuously, but there was a
wicked gleam in her eye that prepared him for her sudden descent upon
the office two days later, with the startling news that now she had
positively STOPPED, but fourteen children had been asked!
Barry, rather to her surprise, remained calm.
"Well, I've got an idea," he said presently, "that will make that all
right, fourteen children or twenty, it won't make any difference. Only,
it may not appeal to you."
"Oh, it will--and you are an angel!" said the lady fervently.
"I've got a friend up the country here in a lumber-mill," Barry
explained, "Joe Painter--he hauls logs down from the forest to the
river, with a team of eight oxen. Now, if he'd lend them, and you got a
hay-wagon from Old Paloma, you wouldn't have any trouble at all."
"Oh, but Barry," she gasped, her face radiant, "would he lend them?"
"I think he would; he'd have to come too, you know, and drive them.
I'll ride up and see, anyway."
"Oxen," mused Mrs. Burgoyne, "how perfectly glorious! The children will
go wild with joy. And, you see, my Indian boys--"
"Your WHAT?"
"I didn't mention them," said Sidney serenely, "because they'll walk
alongside, and won't count in the load. But, you see, some of those
nice little mill-boys who don't go to school heard the girls talking
about it, and one of them asked me--so wistfully!--if there was
anything THEY could do. I immediately thought of Indian costumes."
"But how the deuce will you get the costumes made?" said Barry, drawing
a sheet of paper toward him, and beginning some calculations, with an
anxious eye.
"Why, it's just cheese-cloth for the girls. Mrs. Brown and I have our
machines up in the barn, and Mrs. Carew and Mrs. Adams will come up and
help, there's not much to THAT! Barry, if you will really get us
this--this ox-man--nothing else will worry me at all."
"You'll have to put the beasts up in your barn."
"Oh, surely! Ask him what they eat. Oh, Barry, we MUST have them! Think
how picturesque they'll be! I've been thinking my entry would be a
disgrace to the parade, but I don't believe it will be so bad. Barry,
when will we know about it?"
"You can count on it, I guess. Joe won't refuse," Barry said, with his
lazy smile.
"Oh, you're an angel! I'm going shopping this instant. Barry, there
will be room now for my Ellen, and Billy, and Dicky Carew, won't there?
It seems their hearts are bursting with the desire. Bunting," murmured
Sidney, beginning a list, "cheese-cloth, pink, blue, and cream, bolts
of it; twine, beads, leather, feathers; some big white hats; ice-cream,
extra milk--"
"Hold on! What for?"
"Why, they have to have something to eat afterward," she reproached
him. "We're going to have a picnic up at the Hall. Then those that can
will join their people for the fireworks, and the others will be taken
home to Old Paloma. The little Scott girl will stay with Ellen and Jo
overnight; Mammy Currey will look after them, and they'll watch the
fireworks from my porch. I've written to ask Doctor Young--he's the
best in San Francisco--to come up from the city next day to see what he
thinks can be done for Mary Scott."
"You get a lot of fun out of your money, don't you, Sidney?" said
Barry, watching her amusedly, as she tucked the list into her purse and
arose with a great air of business.
"More than any one woman deserves," she answered soberly.
"Walter," said Anne Pratt to her brother, one evening about this time,
as she decorously filled his plate from the silver tureen, "have you
heard that Mrs. Burgoyne has gathered up about twenty children in Old
Paloma--cripples, and orphans, and I don't know what all!--and is
getting up a wagon for the Flower Festival? I was up at the Hall
to-day, and they're working like beavers."
"Carew said something about it," said Walter Pratt. "Seems a good idea.
Those poor little kids over there don't have much fun."
"You never said so before, Walter," his sister returned almost
resentfully.
"I don't know why I shouldn't have," said Walter literally. "It's true."
"If we did anything for any children, it ought to be Lizzie's," said
Miss Pratt uncomfortably, after a pause.
"I wish to the Lord we COULD do something for Lizzie's kids," her
brother observed suddenly. "I suppose it would kill you to have 'em up
here?"
"Kill me!" Miss Anne echoed with painful eagerness, and with a sudden
tremble of her thin, long hand. "I don't know why it should; there
never were better behaved children born. I don't like Lizzie's husband,
and never shall;" she rushed on, "but seeing those children up at the
Hall to-day made me think of Betty, and Hope, and Davy, cooped up down
there in town. They'd love the Flower Festival, and I could take them
up to the Hall, and Nanny would be wild with joy to have Lizzie's
children here; she'd bake cookies and gingerbread--" A flush had come
into her faded, cool cheek. "Wouldn't they be in your way? You really
wouldn't mind--you won't change your mind about it, Walt?" she said
timidly.
"Change my mind! Why, I'll love to have them running round here," he
answered warmly. "Write Lizzie to-night, and tell her I've got to go
down Tuesday, and I'll bring 'em up."
"I'll tell her that just the things they have will be quite good
enough," said Miss Pratt. "The Burgoyne children just wear
play-ginghams--I'll get them anything else they need!"
"It won't interfere with your club work, Anne?"
"Not in the least!" She was sure of that, "And anyway," she went on
decidedly, "I'm not going to the club so much this summer. Mary Brown
and I went yesterday, and there was--well, I suppose it was a good
paper on 'The Mind of the Child,' by Miss Sarah Rich. But it seemed so
flat. And Mary Brown said, coming away, 'I think Doctor and I will
still come to the monthly receptions, but I believe I won't listen to
any more papers like that. They're all very well for people who have no
children--'"
"Well, by Tuesday night you'll have three!" said Walter, with what was
for him great gaiety of manner.
"Walter," his sister suggested nervously, "you'll be awfully
affectionate with Lizzie, won't you? Be sure to tell her that we WANT
them; and tell her that they'll be playing up at the Hall all summer,
as we used to. You know, I've been thinking, Walter," went on the poor
lady, with her nose suddenly growing red and her eyes watering, "that
I've not been a very good sister to Lizzie. She's the youngest, and
Mother--Mother wasn't here to advise her about her marriage, and--and
now I don't write her; and she wrote me that Betty had a cough, and
Davy was so noisy indoors in wet weather--and I just go to the Club to
hear papers upon 'Napoleon' and 'The Mind of the Child.'" And Miss
Anne, beginning to cry outright, leaned back in her chair, and covered
her face with her handkerchief.
"Well, Anne--well, Anne," her brother said huskily, "we'll make it up
now. Where are you going to put them?" he presently added, with an
inspiration.
Miss Pratt straightened up, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and rang for
the maid.
"Betty and Hope in the big front room--" she began happily.
Another brief conversation, this time between George Carew and his
wife, was indicative of a certain change of view-point that was
affecting the women of Santa Paloma in these days. Mr. Carew, coming
home one evening, found a very demure and charming figure seated on the
porch. Mrs. Carew's gown was simplicity itself: a thin, dotted, dark
blue silk, with a deep childish lace collar and cuffs.
"You look terribly sweet, Jen," said Mr. Carew; "you look out of
sight." And when he came downstairs again, and they were at dinner, he
returned to the subject with, "Jen, I haven't seen you look so sweet
for a long time. What is that, a new dress? Is that for the reception
on the Fourth? Jen, didn't you have a dress like that when we were
first married?"
"Sorrel made this, and it only cost sixty dollars," said Mrs. Carew.
"Well, get her to make you another," her husband said approvingly. At
which Mrs. Carew laughed a little shakily, and came around the table,
and put her arms about him and said:
"Oh, George, you dear old BAT! Miss Pomeroy made this, upstairs here,
in three days, and the silk cost nine dollars. I DID have a dress like
this in my trousseau--my first silk--and I thought it was wonderful;
and I think you're a darling to remember it; and I AM going to wear
this on the Fourth. It's nice enough, isn't it?"
"Nice enough! You'll be the prettiest woman there," stated Mr. Carew
positively.