AN UNWILLING HOSTESS
Meanwhile in the handsome home of Colonel Wainright, on the hill-road
overlooking the distant lake, a very discontented girl sat staring
moodily into the fireplace of a luxuriously furnished living-room. Her
brother stood near, leaning against the mantlepiece.
“I won’t stay here!” Geraldine declared, her dark eyes flashing
rebelliously. “I won’t! I won’t! Father has no right to send me to this
back-woods country village. What if he _was_ born here? _That_ surely was
_his_ misfortune, and no sensible reason why _I_ should be condemned to
be buried here for a whole winter.”
“But, Sister mine,” the boy said in a conciliatory tone. “I’ve been
trying to tell you that there are some nice girls living in Sunnyside,
but you won’t let me. If you would join their school life, you would soon
be having a jolly time. That’s what _I_ mean to do.”
“Alfred Morrison, I don’t see how you came by such plebian ideas. I
should think that you would be ashamed to have your sister attending a
district school when you know that I have always been a pupil at a most
fashionable seminary and have associated only with the _best_ people.”
“What makes them the best, Sister?”
The girl tapped one daintily slippered foot impatiently as she said
scathingly: “Alfred, you are _so_ provoking sometimes. You know the
Ellingsworths and the Drexels and all those people are considered the
best in Dorchester.”
Alfred was about to reply that there was a family of Drexels living in
Sunnyside, but, luckily, before he _had_ said it, his attention was
attracted by the ringing of a cow-bell which seemed to be out in the
driveway. Geraldine also heard, but did not look up. Some delivery wagon,
she thought, but Alfred, who stood so that he could look out of the
window, understood what was happening when he saw the village girls
descending from a delivery sleigh. They slipped out of their fur coats,
leaving them in Johnnie’s care, and appeared in shawls and old-fashioned
capes. For a puzzled moment Alfred gazed; then, as something of the
meaning of the joke flashed over him, he almost laughed aloud. Luckily
Geraldine continued to stare moodily into the fire, nor did she look up
when Alfred left the room. Before the girls on the porch had time to ring
the bell, the boy opened the door and, stepping out, he asked quietly but
with twinkling eyes: “Why the masquerade?”
“Don’t you dare to spoil the joke?” Merry warned when she had told him
that since his sister had expected them to be milkmaids, they had not
wanted to disappoint her. Then she informed him: “My name is Miss Turnip.
You introduce me and I’ll introduce the others.” Alfred’s eyes were
laughing, but in a low voice he said, “I’m game!”
Then aloud he exclaimed: “How do you do, Miss Turnip. I am so glad that
you came to call. Bring your friends right in. My sister will be pleased
to meet you.”
Merry, in telling Jack about it afterwards, said that Alfred played his
part as though he had been practicing it for weeks.
“Sister Geraldine,” he called pleasantly to the girl who had risen and
was standing haughtily by the fireplace, “permit me to present the young
ladies who live in Sunnyside. They have very kindly called to welcome you
to their village.”
The newcomers all made bobbing curtsies, and, to her credit be it said,
that even little Betty did not giggle, but oh, how hard it was not to.
Of course there had been classes in good breeding in the Dorchester
seminary. One of the rules often emphasized was that it did not matter
_how_ a hostess might feel toward a guest, she must not be rude in her
own home. So Geraldine bowed coldly and asked the young ladies to be
seated.
Alfred, daring to remain no longer, bolted to his room and laughed so
hard that he said afterwards that he couldn’t get his face straight for a
week.
Peggy Pierce, being the best actress among “The Sunny Seven,” had been
asked to take the lead, and so, when they were all seated as awkwardly as
possible, she began: “My name is Mirandy Perkins. We all heard as haow
yew had come to taown, and so we all thought as haow we’d drop in and ask
if yew’d like to jine our Litery Saciety. We do have the best times. Next
week we’re a goin’ to have a Pumpkin Social. Each gal is to bring a
pumpkin pie and each fellow is to bring as many pennies as he is old to
help buy a new town pump for the Square. That’s why it’s called Pump-kin
Social.”
This remark was unexpected, not having been planned at the dress
rehearsal, and it struck Rosamond as being so funny that she sputtered
suspiciously, then taking out a big red cotton handkerchief, she changed
the laugh into a sneeze.
Geraldine sat stiffly gazing at her callers with an expression that would
have frozen them to silence had they been as truly rural as they were
pretending, but, if she had only known it, these country girls had been
attending a school every bit as fashionable as the seminary of which she
so often boasted.
“I thank you,” that young lady replied, “but it is not my intention to
remain in this backwoodsy place. I plan leaving here next week at the
latest.”
“Wall, naow, ain’t that too bad? We thought as how yew’d be seech an
addition to our saciety,” Peggy continued her part. “Of course we all
feel real citified ourselves. We get the latest styles right from
Dorchester for our toggins.”
“Toggins?” Geraldine repeated icily. “Just what are they?”
There surely was a titter somewhere; but Peggy, pretending to be
surprised, remarked: “Why, toggins are hats and things like Jerushy’s
here.” She nodded at the caricature of a red hat with green and pink
trimmings which was perched on Rosamond’s head.
Merry returned to the rehearsal lines from which they had sidetracked.
“Yew’d enjoy our Litery Saciety, I’m sure,” she said, “bein’ as yew have
a litery sort of a look. We meet onct a week around at differunt houses.
We sew on things for the missionary barrel, and then one of us reads
aloud out of The Farmers’ Weekly.”
Just then the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of four, and Peggy
sprang up. “Crickets!” she exclaimed, “Here ’tis comin’ on dark most, and
me not home to milk the caows.”
“An’ I’ve got to churn yet before supper,” Doris Drexel ventured her
first remark. Luckily Geraldine did not glance at the soft, white hands
of the speaker. They were all smiling in the friendliest fashion, but as
soon as they were outside and riding away in their queer equipage, they
shouted and laughed as they had never laughed before.
“Her highness will probably leave town tomorrow,” Doris remarked, “but if
she does, the town will be well rid of her.”
“I wonder if we put it on too thick,” Bertha questioned as they were
slipping on their fur coats, which they had left in the sleigh. “I was
afraid she would see through our joke.”
“I don’t believe she did,” Merry said. “Alfred told Jack that his sister
got her ideas of girls who live in country villages from the moving
pictures, and they are always as outlandishly dressed as we are.”
“Well it will be interesting to see what comes of our nonsense,” Gertrude
remarked. “On the whole I feel rather sorry for that poor, unhappy girl.”
When Alfred saw the queer equipage disappearing, he descended to the
library. “Oh, hello, Sis,” he said, “Have your callers gone?”
Geraldine’s eyes flashed and she stamped her small foot as she said:
“Alfred Morrison, I just know that you asked those dreadful creatures to
call on me. I suppose you would like to have _me_ attend their Pumpkin
Social, which is to be given to raise money to buy a town pump.”
This was too much for Alfred and he laughed heartily.
“Well,” he said at last, when he could speak, “I take off my hat to the
young ladies of Sunnyside. They are the cleverest damsels that I ever
met.” So saying, he disappeared, fearing that he would break his promise
to Merry and reveal that it was all a joke if he remained any longer with
his indignant sister.
Geraldine would probably have packed her trunk that very night and
departed the next day if she had had sufficient money with which to buy a
ticket, but for some reason her monthly allowance from her father had
been delayed.