HAPPY NEW YEAR!
"It's been a gay old week, hasn't it?" said Marjorie, on New Year's Eve.
"You bet!" cried King, who sometimes lapsed from the most approved
diction. "Wish it was just beginning. We had fine skating till the snow
came, and ever since, it's been bang-up sleighing. Well, only four more
days, and then school, school, school!"
"Don't remind me of it!" said Marjorie with a groan. "I wish I was a Fiji
or whatever doesn't have to go to school at all!"
"Oh, pshaw, Midge; it isn't so bad after you get started. Only holidays
make you so jolly that it's hard to sit down and be quiet."
"It's always hard for me to sit down and be quiet," said Midge. "If
they'd let me walk around, or sit on the tables or window-sills, I
wouldn't mind school so much. It's being cramped into those old desks
that I hate."
Poor little Marjorie, so active and restless, it was hard for her to
endure the confinement of the schoolroom.
"Why don't you ask mother to let you go to boarding-school, Mops?" asked
Kitty, with an air of having suggested a brilliant solution of her
sister's difficulties.
Marjorie laughed. "No, thank you, Kitsie," she said. "What good would
that do? In the school hours I s'pose I'd have to sit as still as I do
here, and out of school hours I'd die of homesickness. Imagine being away
off alone, without all of you!"
Kitty couldn't imagine anything like that, so she gave it up.
"Then I guess you'll have to go to school, same's you always have done."
"I guess I will," said Marjorie, sighing. "But there's a few more days'
holiday yet, and I'm not going to think about it till I have to. What
shall we do to-night? It's the last night of the old year, you know."
"I wonder if they'd let us sit up and see it out," said King.
"We never have," returned Marjorie; "I don't believe Mother'd say yes,
though maybe Father would."
"If he does, Mother'll have to," said Kitty, with a knowledge born of
experience. "Let's ask 'em."
"It's almost bed-time now," said King, glancing at the clock; "but I'm
not a bit sleepy."
The others declared they were not, either, and they all went in search of
their parents. They found them in the library, with Uncle Steve and
Grandma, who were still visiting them.
"Sit the old year out!" exclaimed Mr. Maynard, when he heard their
request. "Why, you're almost asleep now!"
"Oh, we're not a bit sleepy!" protested Marjorie. "Do, Daddy, dear, let
us try it,--we never have, you know."
"Why, I've no objections, if Mother hasn't."
Mrs. Maynard looked as if she didn't think much of the plan, but Uncle
Steve broke in, saying:
"Oh, let them, of course! It can't do them any harm except to make them
sleepy to-morrow, and they can nap all day if they like."
"Yes, let them do it," said Grandma, who was an indulgent old lady. "But
I'm glad I don't have to sit up with them."
"I too," agreed Mr. Maynard. "I used to think it was fun, but I've seen
so many New Years come sneaking in, that it's become an old, old story."
"That's just it, sir," said King, seeing a point of vantage. "We haven't,
you know, and we'd like to see just how they come in."
"Well," said his father, "where will you hold this performance? I can't
have you prowling all over the house, waking up honest people who are
abed and asleep."
"You must take the nursery," said Mrs. Maynard. "I wouldn't let you stay
downstairs alone, but you may stay in the nursery as late as you like. I
daresay by ten or half-past, you'll be glad to give it up, and go to your
beds."
"Not we," said King. "Thank you, heaps, for letting us do it. We're going
to have a fine time. Come on, girls!"
"One minute, King; you're not to make any noise after ten-thirty. Grandma
goes to her room then, and the rest of us soon after."
"All right, we won't. It isn't going to be a noisy party, anyhow."
"Then I don't see how it can be a Maynard party," said Uncle Steve,
quizzically, but the children had run away.
"Now, we'll just have the time of our lives!" said King, as the three of
them reached the nursery.
"Of course we will," agreed Marjorie. "What shall we do?"
"Let's see, it's nine o'clock. We can play anything till half-past ten;
after that we can only do quiet things. Let's play Blind Man's Buff."
"All right, you be _it_."
So King was blindfolded, and he soon caught Kitty, who soon caught
Midget, and then she caught King again. But it wasn't very much fun, and
nobody quite knew why.
"It makes me too tired," said Kitty, throwing herself on the couch, and
fanning her hot little face with her handkerchief. "Let's play a sit-down
game."
"But we can play those after we have to be quiet," objected King. "Get
up, Kit, you'll fall asleep if you lie there."
"No, I won't," said Kitty, opening her eyes very wide, but cuddling to
the soft pillow.
"Yes, you will, too! Come on. Let's play 'animals.' That's noisy enough,
and you can sit down too."
"Animals" was a card game where they sat round a table, and as occasion
required assumed the voices of certain animals.
"All right," said Kitty, jumping up; "I'll be the Laughing Hyena."
"I'll be a Lion," said King, and Marjorie decided to be a Rooster.
Soon the game was in full swing, and as the roar of the lion, the crowing
of the rooster, and the strange noise that represented Kitty's idea of
the hyena's mirth, floated downstairs, the grown-ups smiled once more at
the irrepressible spirits of the young Maynards. But after they had
roared and crowed and laughed for what seemed like an interminable time,
King looked at his Christmas watch and exclaimed:
"Goodness, girls! it's only half-past nine! I though it was about
eleven!"
"So did I," said Marjorie, trying to hide a yawn.
"Oh, I say, Mops, you're sleepy!"
"I am not, either! I just sort of--sort of choked."
"Well, don't do it again. What shall we play now?"
"Let's sing," said Kitty.
So Marjorie banged away on the nursery piano, and they sang everything
they could think of.
"I can't play another note," said Midget, at last. "My fingers are
perfectly numb. Isn't it nearly twelve?"
"Isn't ten," said King, closing his watch with a snap. "We've only a
half-hour more before we've got to be quiet, so let's make the most of
it."
"I'm hungry," said Kitty. "Can't we get something to eat?"
"Good idea!" said King. "Let's forage for some things, and bring them up
here, but don't eat them until later. After half-past ten, you know."
So they all slipped down to the pantry, and returned with a collection of
apples and cookies, which they carefully set aside for a later luncheon.
"Only twenty minutes left of our noisy time," said King, with a
suspicious briskness in his tone. "Come on, girls, let's have a racket."
"There's no racket to me!" declared Kitty, throwing herself on the couch;
"I feel--quiet."
"Quiet!" exclaimed her brother. "Kit Maynard, if you're sleepy, you can
go to bed! You're too young to sit up with Midge and me, anyhow!"
This touched Kitty in a sensitive spot, as he knew it would.
"I'm not!" she cried, indignantly; "I'm as old as you are, so there!"
King didn't contradict this, which would seem to prove them both a bit
sleepy.
"You are, Kitty!" said Marjorie, laughing; "you're older than either of
us! So you tell us what to do to keep awake!"
It was out! Marjorie had admitted that they were sleepy.
King grinned a little sheepishly. "Pooh," he said, "it'll pass over if we
just get interested in something. Let's read aloud to each other."
"That always puts me to sleep," said Kitty, with a fearful and
undisguised yawn.
"Kit! if you do that again, we'll put you out! Now, brace up,--or else go
to bed!"
Kitty braced up. Indeed, Kitty had special powers in this direction, if
she chose to exercise them.
"Pooh, I can brace up better than either of you," she said, confidently;
"and here's how I'm going to do it."
She went over to the big nursery washstand, and turning the cold water
faucet, ran the bowl full, and then plunged her face and hands in.
"Kit, you're a genius!" cried her brother, in admiration, as she came up,
spluttering, and then made another dash. Soon Kitty's face was hidden in
the folds of a rough towel, and the others successively followed her
lead.
"My! how it freshens you!" said Marjorie, rubbing her rosy cheeks till
they glowed. "I'm as wide awake as anything!"
"So'm I," said King. "Kit, I take off my hat to you! Now it's half-past
ten. I move we eat our foods, and then we can have a good time playing
parcheesi or jack-straws."
They drew up to the nursery table, and endeavored to enjoy the cookies
and apples.
"How funny things taste at night," said Kitty. "I'm not hungry, after
all."
"You'd better wash your face again," said Marjorie, looking at her
sister's drooping eyelids.
"Do something to her," said King, in despair.
So Marjorie tickled Kitty, until she made her laugh, and that roused her
a little.
"I won't go to sleep," she said, earnestly; "truly, I won't. I want to
see the New Year come. Let's look out the window for it."
Kitty's plans were always good ones.
Drawing the curtains aside the three stood at the window, their arms
about each other.
"Isn't it still?" whispered Marjorie, "and look at the moon!"
A yellow, dilapidated-looking, three-quarter sort of a moon was sinking
in the west, and the bark branches of the trees stood out blackly in the
half-light.
The roads gleamed white, and the shrubbery looked dark, the whole
landscape was weird and unlike the sunny scenes they knew so well.
"I s'pose everybody in the house is abed now, but us," said King. He
meant it exultantly, but his voice had a tone of awe, that found an echo
in the girls' hearts.
"Come away from the window," said Midge; turning back to the brightly
lighted room. "Let's think of something nice to do."
"I can think better here," said Kitty, dropping heavily on the couch, her
head, by good luck; striking squarely in the middle of the pillow.
"Kit," said her brother,--"Kitty,--you,--you go to bed,--if you--if you
can't--"
As King spoke, he came across a big armchair, and quite unintentionally
he let himself fall into it. It felt very pleasant, somehow,--so much so,
indeed, that he neglected to finish his admonition to Kitty, and she
wouldn't have heard it if he had!
Marjorie, by a strange coincidence, also met a most friendly Morris
chair, which held out inviting arms. It seemed a pity to refuse such
cordiality, so Marjorie sat down in it a minute to do that thinking
they had spoken about. What was it they were to think of? Something
about the moon? No, that wasn't it. Her new furs? Not quite;
school,--Gladys,--cookies?
These thoughts drifted confusedly about Marjorie's brain for a few
moments, and then, with a little tired sigh, her curly head dropped back
on the Morris chair's velvet cushion, and her eyes closed.
How those three children _did_ sleep! The sound, hard sleep that only
healthy, romping children know. When Mrs. Maynard softly opened the door
a little later, she almost laughed aloud at the picturesque trio.
But stifling her mirth lest she awake them, she called her husband to her
side. After a few whispered words, they went away, and returned with down
quilts and steamer rugs, which they gently tucked about the vanquished
heroes, and then lowering the lights left them asleep at their posts.
For an hour the children slept soundly, and then, at ten minutes before
twelve the nursery door was softly opened again.
This time, Mr. and Mrs. Maynard, accompanied by Grandma Sherwood and
Uncle Steve, came in, apparently with the intention of staying. Mr.
Maynard snapped on the lights, and the grownups smiled as they gazed on
the faces of the sleeping children.
"What time is it, Fred?" asked Mrs. Maynard.
"Seven minutes of twelve."
"Waken them, then. There isn't any too much time."
So Mr. Maynard sprung a small "watchman's rattle." It made a pleasant
whirr, but he was obliged to hold it near each child's ear before those
deep slumbers were disturbed.
"What is it?" said King, who first opened his eyes. "Kitty, you're
asleep!"
His last waking thought possessed him as his eye fell on his sleeping
sister, he spoke before he realized that he had been asleep himself.
"What's the matter?" he said, seeing all the people standing about, and
noticing the rug over himself.
"Nothing's the matter," answered his father, blithely, "only the New Year
is hurrying toward us, and we all want to greet it together."
"You bet we do!" cried King, now broad awake, and shaking himself out of
his rug as he jumped up.
Mrs. Maynard was rousing Kitty, and sat beside the half-asleep child with
her arm round her, while Grandma was treating Marjorie in the same way.
"It seems a shame," began Grandma, but Uncle Steve interrupted:
"A shame to wake them? Not a bit of it! It would be a shame to let them
sleep through a chance that they won't get again for a year! Hello!
chickabiddies! Hello! Wake up! Fire! Murder! Thieves! Fred, give me that
rattle!"
Taking the noisy little toy, Uncle Steve sprang it vigorously, and was
rewarded for his efforts by seeing the two girls at last on their feet
and smiling broadly,--wide awake now, indeed.
"Five minutes grace," said Mr. Maynard. "Out with your watches, you who
have them. The rest look on with somebody else."
Kitty ran to her father's side, and cuddled in his arm, as she looked at
his watch. Marjorie saw Uncle Steve's smile inviting her, so she flew
across the room to him; and King politely offered his watch to his mother
and grandmother, saying the nursery clock would do for him.
Care was taken to have all the time-pieces set exactly alike, and then it
was three minutes of midnight, and they waited.
"He'll come in at the window, the New Year will," said Mr. Maynard as he
flung the casement wide open. "The old year is going. Bid him good-bye,
children, you'll never see him again. Good-bye, old year, good-bye!"
"Good-bye, old year, good-bye!" they all said in concert, and murmured it
again, as the last seconds flew steadily by.
"Happy New Year!" shouted Mr. Maynard, as his second-hand reached the
mark, but he was no quicker than the others, and all the voices rang out
a "Happy New Year" simultaneously.
Then the village clock began to strike twelve, all the bells in the
little town began to ring, some firing was heard, and shouts from
passers-by in the streets added to the general jubilee.
"Isn't it splendid!" cried Marjorie, as she leaned out of the window.
"The moon is gone, but see the bright, bright stars, all twinkling 'Happy
New Year' to us!"
"May it indeed be a Happy New Year for you, my dear child," said her
father, as he kissed her tenderly.
And then everybody was exchanging kisses and greetings, and good wishes,
and Marjorie realized that at last, she had sat up to "see the New Year
in."
"But I don't see how we happened to fall asleep," she said, looking
puzzled.
"I, either," said King; "I was just bound I wouldn't, and then I did."
"You were bound I shouldn't, too," said Kitty, "but I did!"
"You all did!" said Mr. Maynard. "Such sleeping I never saw!"
"Well, it was lovely of you to wake us up," said Marjorie; "I wouldn't
have missed all this for anything."
"All things come to him who waits," said her father, "and you certainly
waited very quietly and patiently!"
"And now, skip to bed," said Mrs. Maynard, "and not until three hundred
and sixty-five nights are passed, do we have such a performance as this
again."
"All right," said the children, "good-night, and Happy New Year!"
"Good-night and Happy New Year!" echoed the grown-ups.