A BATTLE ROYAL
That night was another wakeful one for Phœbe. She had thoroughly
enjoyed the lawn fête, but it left her too nervous for peaceful slumber
until her pulses had calmed down and she was enabled to regain her
accustomed composure. She went to bed, but not to sleep, and after the
house became quiet she lay thinking over the incidents of the evening.
Gradually peace came to her. She was really tired, and the somnolent
thrall of midnight was making her drowsy when she was roused by the
movements of old Elaine in the next room.
It had been nearly a week since she had removed the board over the
transom and prepared her peephole, but during that time the housekeeper
had remained quiet, or at least Phœbe had not heard her. To-night
the stealthy sounds began again, and after listening a few moments the
girl softly arose, drew the table to a position before the door and
mounted upon it.
She tried to be quiet, but probably she made some sound in these
preparations, for scarcely had she slid the corner of the board away,
to look into the next room, when the light which faintly illumined it
was suddenly extinguished.
Phœbe stood motionless, waiting. Elaine, doubtless alarmed, did not
stir for a long time. The old woman may have scented danger without
realizing in what manner it threatened her, but her caution was
excessive. At last, Phœbe heard her breathe a low sigh and then
patter softly across the room to her bed and lie down.
The seance was over for to-night, without doubt. Exercising great care,
the girl noiselessly descended from her perch and, tiptoeing to bed,
composed herself to slumber.
Next morning, in considering the night’s occurrence, she decided to
leave the table where it stood--before the door--and to place a chair
beside it so she could mount noiselessly at any moment. It was several
days, however, before Elaine recovered from her fright or suspicions,
and during that time no unusual sounds came from her room.
It rained the morning after Marion’s party, and Phœbe was curious
to know if all the pretty lanterns had been wetted and destroyed. But,
on looking across at the lawn she discovered that every trace of last
night’s festivities had been removed by the servants. Tents, lanterns,
band stand, all had been taken away as soon as the guests had departed,
and the Randolph grounds were as trim and orderly as before.
The children resented the rain, for it kept all of them except Phil,
who was at work, cooped up in the house until after dinner. Judith
found time, during the dreary forenoon, to tell them some stories and
to talk over with them once again the adventures of the lawn fête,
which still occupied their minds.
When, at last, the rain ceased and the bright July sun came out of the
clouds, they greeted it with genuine relief and joyously scattered in
all directions.
Don, deserted by Becky, who had to go to Miss Gray’s for her music
lesson, walked out to the street and found Allerton promenading up and
down the opposite sidewalk, his head bowed and his hands clasped behind
his back--as an old man might have strutted. The sight awakened Don’s
slumbering wrath and he called out:
“Hello, mollycoddle! What are you up to?”
Allerton straightened up and glanced across the street.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Are you ready for your thrashing?”
“Yes. I dare you to come over here,” responded Don, promptly.
“If you want your punishment, come and get it!”
“You’re afraid,” sneered Don.
“It isn’t that,” replied Allerton. “I haven’t my gloves here, and I
dislike to soil my hands.”
Don glared at his neighbor’s spick and span apparel, and the sight of
the “dandy” made him still more combative. Allerton was the biggest and
strongest, perhaps; but he was nearly a year younger than Don, who had
no thought of his own disadvantage. In that mood he would willingly
have fought a giant.
“I dare you to come half way,” he challenged, and as the other boy
hesitated, Don advanced along the muddy crossing at the corner until he
was at about the middle of it. It was an old board crosswalk, and just
beyond where Don stood it was so low that the thin mud of the street
had spread a layer over it.
This it was that caused Allerton to hesitate. He had a natural regard
for his polished shoes and carefully brushed clothes and, while fully
as eager for the fray as Donald, he would have preferred a more
suitable place to fight.
The taunts of young Daring, however, were not to be endured. It was
really necessary to teach impolite Donald a lesson he would remember.
So Allerton attempted the crossing.
When he came to the muddy section he halted.
“Come on, then!” he exclaimed.
“This is half way,” said Don. “Come on yourself.”
“You back down, do you?”
“No, I don’t back down. You’re the coward, Al.”
“Coward!”
“That’s what I said.”
It was too great an insult for Allerton to brook. With doubled fists he
advanced upon the eager, slender boy awaiting him. Don staggered under
a heavy blow received full upon the chin, and then his own fist shot
out and struck Allerton’s chest.
To his amazement it was “a knockdown.” Young Randolph’s feet slipped on
the slimy crossing and he fell backward full length in the soft mud of
the road.
With a roar of rage and chagrin he scrambled to his feet, and Don
planted another blow that sent him to the mud again. It was not a hard
blow, by any means. It seemed as though a mere touch was sufficient,
for Allerton’s feet were now so covered with mud that he could scarcely
stand upon them. A push from Don sufficed to upset him, and observing
the ease of the operation Don repeated his blow each time that Allerton
arose, laughing gleefully at the result of his own prowess. In the
heat of the encounter, however, he neglected to keep his own footing
on the cleaner and safer portion of the boards, so that in one of
Allerton’s falls his arm struck Don and sent him likewise sprawling in
the sticky mud.
They sat up and looked at each other in bewilderment. Allerton had
never been so astonished in his life as at his present misadventure,
and now, as he saw one side of Don’s head plastered with mud, which
filled an ear and an eye, he burst into a hearty laugh.
Don scraped the mud out of his eye, blinked at his antagonist, and
laughed too.
“Guess honors are about even, Al,” he said. “I’ve had enough. Have you?”
“Plenty,” declared Allerton, making an effort to rise from the puddle.
Don managed to find his feet after a severe struggle.
“My, but you’re a sight!” he exclaimed.
“So are you,” replied Allerton, cheerfully. “We both ought to be
ashamed of ourselves.”
“I--I’m afraid Cousin Judith will scold.”
“Well, I’m certain to catch it, all right. So long, Don.”
“So long, Al. Let’s go down town, after we’ve dressed.”
“All right.”
Thus the fight resulted in amity; but Don was dreadfully humiliated
when he had to face the Little Mother in all that mess. He took off
his shoes on the porch and humbly made his way up stairs to knock at
Judith’s door.
“I--I’ve fallen down in the mud,” he called to her. “May I put on my
best suit?”
Miss Eliot had been a witness of the entire scrimmage from her window,
and had even overheard the words that had preceded and provoked the
fight. She had decided not to interfere, but now she answered in a
frigid voice through the closed door:
“No, Donald. I cannot have your best suit ruined.”
“But what shall I do, Cousin Judith?”
“You must go to bed until the mud on your clothes dries and they can be
properly cleaned.”
Donald stood silently in the hall, his face flushed red with
humiliation. He waited a long while for Cousin Judith to speak again,
but she remained silent. At last he crept away to his own room, removed
the disreputable garments and examined them dolefully. Coat, trousers,
shirt, stockings--all were alike plastered with thick layers of fresh
mud. It would take them a long time to dry, he feared.
With a sinking heart he put on his pajamas, having first washed himself
clean, and then sat down to consider his dismal fate.
“It was a pretty good fight,” he mused; “but fighting don’t seem
to pay, somehow. I wish I had let Al alone. He isn’t so much of a
mollycoddle, after all.”
Finally, he thought of Aunt Hyacinth, and resolving to appeal to that
faithful friend he crept down into the kitchen and begged her to help
him. Aunty looked the clothes over in dismay, saying:
“’Tain’t no use, Marse Don. Dat ’ar mud won’t dry ’fore mawnin’, nohow.
I’ll do mah bes’, honey; but I neveh seen sich a mess in all mah bohn
days!”
With this verdict Don was forced to be content. He had a notion to
appeal to Cousin Judith again, but could not muster the courage. So he
got a book, lay down upon his bed and passed the rest of the afternoon
in abject misery.