A RIDICULOUS PARTY
Stella came early, and Ladybird was tempted to confide in her, and
perhaps ask her to enlighten Aunt Priscilla.
But the child's sense of the dramatic was too strong for this, and
notwithstanding her own precarious position, she preferred to wait and
let the whole remarkable situation burst unheralded upon her unsuspecting
aunts.
And it proved to be worth while; for the expression on Miss Priscilla
Flint's patrician countenance as she saw a motley crowd coming in at her
front gate was never forgotten either by Ladybird or Stella.
The guests had been bidden to come at three o'clock, and as they obeyed
with scrupulous promptness, the greater part of the party arrived all at
once. As they came up the path, Ladybird grasped the situation with both
hands, and turning to her Aunt Priscilla, said:
"This is my party, aunty, that is coming in, and I hope they will like
you. I did as you told me: I invited those who would enjoy it most, and I
also followed the Bible command, 'If you must make a feast, make it for
the poor, and the halt, and the maimed, and the blind'; and if you can
find anybody poorer or maimeder or halter than these people, I don't know
where they are. I am now going to open the front door and admit my
guests, and I expect them to receive the welcome of Primrose Hall; and
for goodness' sake, aunty, brace up!"
The last admonition was by no means unnecessary, for Miss Flint certainly
looked as if she were about to fall in a faint.
"Did you know of this?" she demanded, turning to Stella, who stood by,
uncertain whether to laugh or sympathize.
"No," said the girl; "I knew nothing of it, and I don't understand it
yet; but I think, Miss Flint, you will be glad afterward, if you rise to
the occasion and show to these friends of Ladybird's, whoever they may
be, the hospitality for which Primrose Hall is so justly famous."
Now Primrose Hall was not famous for its hospitality; indeed, the reverse
was nearer the truth. But Stella's remark touched the old lady's pride,
and she answered:
"Hospitality is all very well, but it does not mean inviting a parcel of
paupers to come in and make themselves at home in one's house."
"No," said Stella, soothingly; "but since Ladybird has asked these
people, and apparently from good and honest motives, is it not your duty
to uphold your niece, at least before strangers?"
"No, it is not!" said Miss Priscilla, angrily. "My niece can bear the
consequences of her own rash act. I'm going to order those people out of
my house at once! Where is Dorinda? Does she know of this outrage?"
Just then Miss Dorinda appeared from the dining-room. She was flushed,
but smiling, and her face wore a satisfied expression which betokened
that all was well in the commissariat department.
Her smile faded as she caught sight of Miss Priscilla's face; but before
that irate lady could say a word, Ladybird came in from the front hall,
marshaling her guests in a decorous line to be presented.
The widow Taylor came first, and she held a twin on either arm. The
Taylor children were about a year old and of strenuous disposition.
Ladybird's eyes were dancing with excitement, but with a demure
politeness that had in it a charming touch of gentle courtesy she
introduced Mrs. Taylor to her aunts.
The widow was of the affably helpless type, and encumbered as she was
with fidgety impedimenta, found herself unable to offer the hand of
fellowship.
"I'm glad to meet you," she said, earnestly looking the Misses Flint in
their stony faces; "and if you'll just hold these children a minute, I'll
shake hands, and then I'll take my bonnet off, for this long veil is
dreadfully in the way, and the babies do pull at it so!"
While Mrs. Taylor talked she distributed her offspring impartially
between her two hostesses, and as the visitor's movements were far
quicker than the Flint ladies' wits, Miss Priscilla and Miss Dorinda each
found herself with a fat, roly-poly baby securely seated in the angle of
her thin, stiff old left arm.
It may have been that some latent chord was touched in the hearts of the
good ladies, or it may have been that their muscles were actually
paralyzed with amazement, but at any rate they did not let the babies
drop to the floor, as Ladybird confidently expected they would.
Having shaken hands politely, Mrs. Taylor proceeded to take off her
bonnet, talking all the while in a casually conversational manner.
"Nice and neat, isn't it?" she said, viewing with satisfaction the tiny
bonnet which only served as a starting-point for the long black crape
veil and a resting-place for the full white crape ruche. "I don't often
get a chance to wear it; but I'm so fond of it; it's my greatest
consolation since Mr. Taylor died. I call it my cloud with the silver
lining."
Stella took the precious bonnet from Mrs. Taylor's hands, promising to
put it safely away, and by that time Ladybird was presenting the elder
Mr. Harris.
Though the old soldier was disabled and poor, he was a courtly gentleman
of the old school and greeted the ladies with a quiet comprehension of
his own dignity and theirs. Moreover, Richard Harris had been a friend of
the Flint ladies in their youth, and though circumstances had pushed them
far apart, a few slender threads of memory still held.
Ignoring their squirming left-armfuls, Major Harris shook hands with the
Primrose ladies, and then, with the aid of his crutches, limped away.
It seemed a pathetic coincidence that his grandson Dick, who followed
him, should also be on crutches, especially as his lameness lacked the
patriotic glory of his grandfather's.
Dick Harris was frankly delighted with the whole occasion, and did not
hesitate to say so. He shook hands vigorously with the Misses Flint, and
his face beamed as he expressed his gratitude for their invitation.
"But you ladies oughtn't to be holdin' them heavy kids," he said. "I wish
I could take 'em, but I can't. Here, Jim Blake and Tom Tuckerman, you
take these infants away from the ladies, so's they can shake hands
decent."
Apparently the lame boy's word was law, for the two boys he had called,
though looking a little embarrassed, darted up and secured the twins with
an awkward but efficacious clutch.
Miss Leech and Sam Scott were then presented together.
Ladybird didn't do this for the logical reason that two half-witted
people ought to count as one, but because she was impatient to get the
introductions over with and begin the party.
Miss Leech wandered a little, confused the ladies' names, and asked Miss
Priscilla if she had paid off her mortgage yet. Sam Scott wandered a
great deal, and grasping Miss Priscilla's hand, shook it up and down
continuously, while he babbled, "Beautiful day, beautiful day, beautiful,
beautiful day, beautiful day, beautiful--"
He was still expressing his opinion of the weather when Stella led him
away and seated him in a corner with a picture-book to look at.
By this time Miss Priscilla had reached that state of mind which can only
be described as the obstupefaction of the tumultuous. Her brain was
benumbed by rapid and successive emotions, and as the climax of each had
proved absurdly inadequate to the situation, Miss Priscilla was perforce
in a condition of helpless docility, and Ladybird recognized this, and
was not slow to take advantage of it.
Realizing that her aunt had interests, or at least memory, in common with
Major Harris, she contrived to establish the two on a comfortable old
sofa, where, despite the differences of the present, they were soon lost
in the past.
Then Ladybird, with her natural talent for generalship, but with a tact
and ability really beyond her years, arranged her other guests to the
happy satisfaction of each.
Miss Dorinda found herself entertaining, or rather being entertained by,
Mrs. Taylor, and each of these ladies held one of the romping twins, and
actually seemed to enjoy it.
Miss Leech required no entertaining save to be allowed to wander about at
will, touching with timid, delicate fingers the ornaments or curios about
the room, and making happy, though inarticulate, comments upon them.
Then Ladybird and Stella devoted themselves to the amusement of the rest
of the guests, who were all children and easily pleased by playing games
or listening to Stella while she sang funny songs to her banjo
accompaniment.
During one of these songs, Ladybird slipped out to the kitchen in search
of Martha and Bridget, who were as yet unacquainted with the character of
the Primrose Hall guests.
"I expect they'll raise Cain," she said to herself; "but I feel like
Alexander to-day, and I'd just as soon conquer a few more worlds as not.
"Martha," she began in a conciliatory tone, though determination lurked
beneath her eyelashes, "the people who have come to my party are not the
ones I expected to invite at first. They're--they're different."
"Yes, miss," said Martha, impassively.
"And two of them are lame, Martha, and two of them are babies, and two of
them are not quite right in their heads."
"Luny, miss?"
"Well, yes; I think you might call it that," said Ladybird, gravely
considering the case. Then after a pause she added, "And Martha, we'll
have to fix high chairs for the babies; put cushions in the chairs, you
know, or dictionaries, or something."
"Did your aunts invite these people, miss?" said Martha, suspecting, more
from Ladybird's manner than her words, that there was something toward.
"I invited them," said Ladybird, with one of her sudden, but often
useful, accessions of dignity, "and my aunts are at present entertaining
them. You'll see about the high chairs, won't you Martha?"
In reality, Ladybird's strong friend and ally, Martha, was always
vanquished by the child's dazzling smile, and she answered heartily,
"Indeed I will, miss; you'll find everything in the dining-room all
right."
Reassured, Ladybird went back to the parlor, to find her party still
going on beautifully. Stella's graceful tact and ready ingenuity were the
best assistance Ladybird could have had, and the child gave a sigh of
relief as she thought to herself she had certainly succeeded in inviting
the ones who would enjoy it the most.
At five o'clock supper was served. Although the technical details of the
table proved a trying ordeal to most of the guests (indeed, only the
half-witted ones were wholly at ease), yet the delicious viands, and the
kind-hearted dispensers of them, went far toward establishing a general
harmony.
The guests took their leave punctually at six o'clock, as they had been
invited to do, and Miss Priscilla's parting words to each evinced a
mental attitude entirely satisfactory to Ladybird.
"Though I wish, Lavinia," she said much later, after they had discussed
the affair in its every particular--"I _do_ wish that when you are about
to cut up these fearfully unexpected performances of yours you would warn
us beforehand."
"I will, aunty," said Ladybird, with a most lamb-like docility of manner,
"if you'll promise to agree to them as amiably beforehand as you do
afterward."