THE SPREAD.
Saturday night was a great time for spreads as there was no study hall
on that evening and the girls could come early and stay late. A grand
feast was in preparation at 117 Carter Hall. Mr. Tucker had sent a box
that had passed inspection at the office, although it was filled with
contraband articles; but as he wrote Tweedles, they wouldn't make rules
if they did not expect them to be broken.
"My, I'm glad Miss Peyton doesn't put us on our honor not to have cake
and such," said Dee as she opened up a box stamped with the name of a
well-known drygoods firm and plainly marked in a masculine hand:
"Virginia's Shoes, the fourth pair she has had since Spring and she must
be more careful and have her old ones half-soled."
"Isn't old Zebedee a peach? Look! Tango sandwiches!" (The catalogue to
Gresham plainly says: "Nothing but crackers, fruit and simple candy is
allowed to be eaten in the rooms.")
"Here are olives done up to look like shoe polish," said I, diving into
the big box. "And what is this big round parcel at the bottom?" On it I
read: "Caroline's winter hat. I think you are a very vain girl to insist
on your winter hat just to wear it home on the train for Christmas. I
hope it is not mashed but think it would serve you right for thinking so
much about your appearance." The hat proved to be a great caramel cake,
stuck all over with English walnuts, packed so carefully it was not a
bit mashed. Jars of pickle masqueraded shamelessly as Uneeda Biscuit,
being ingeniously pasted up in the original wrappers. Cream cheese and
pimento sandwiches came dressed as graham wafers; and a whole roasted
chicken had had a very comfortable journey buttoned up in Dum's old
sweater, with a note pinned over its faithful breast saying that Dum
must make out with that sweater for another season as Mr. Tucker could
not put up with her selfish extravagance.
We heard afterward that Miss Sears, whose duty it had been to inspect
this box before it was delivered to the girls, had said that she was
surprised to find that Mr. Jeffry Tucker did not spoil the twins nearly
so much as she had been led to believe. In fact, he seemed to be rather
strict with them and quite critical. For instance, an old sweater that
he expected Dum to wear through the season was not really fit to be seen
in!
There were several boxes of candy, besides all the other goodies. They
were all marked peppermint but were really candied fruit, chocolates,
nougat and what not.
"I tell you, Zebedee is some provider when he gets started," said Dee.
"I'm glad I didn't eat much dinner and I intend to eat no supper at
all."
We were taking stock of our eatables before supper bell so we could see
how many girls we could invite to the spread. It was etiquette at
Gresham to give a girl fair warning when a spread was under way, so she
could save space and not go and fill up in the dining-room. We wanted
to avoid feeling like the old countryman who had his first experience
with a table d'hote dinner. Not knowing there was to be so much
following the first course, he ate too much of it, and afterward loudly
lamented: "Thar I sot chock full er soup."
Annie Pore was, of course, on the list and funny little Mary Flannigan
and the two Seniors, Sally Coles and Josephine Barr. They had been
especially nice to our crowd and we were anxious to show them some
attention. That made seven in all.
"We've really got food for one more or even two," declared Dee, "but
maybe we had better go easy because there is really not room for more."
117 was rather crowded with the three beds, two bureaus, three chairs
and a table, and seven girls would just about fill it to overflowing. It
did not look like the bare cell that had so appalled us on our day of
entering Gresham. We now had a scrim curtain at the window; rugs on the
floor; Tweedles had pretty Roman blankets on their beds with bright
sofa cushions; while I had a beautiful log cabin quilt that Sally Winn
had pieced for me in between her different death throes. The walls were
literally covered with pennants from many schools and colleges with a
few pictures that Dum had stuck in her trunk, purloined from their
apartment in Richmond.
"I don't believe Zebedee will ever miss them, and they mean a lot to
me," she had said when Dee had expressed astonishment on her producing
them from her trunk. "I am so constituted that I've just got to have
something beautiful to look at every now and then." The room was
pleasant and cozy but the crowded walls rather got on my nerves. Bracken
was so big and simple (some people would have called it bare) that I
could not get used to such a conglomeration in a bedroom. I kept my
taste to myself, however, as they were two to one, and no doubt my ideas
of decoration were very old-fashioned and out of date.
Sally Coles and Jo Barr, whom we sought out before supper, were glad to
accept and vowed they would eat not a bite before the feast so that
they could come perfectly empty. Of course Annie Pore and Mary Flannigan
were holding themselves in readiness for the arrival of the promised box
from Mr. Tucker, and the news of its having come safely to hand was
greeted with enthusiasm.
You get tired of any steady food except home food and sometimes you
think you are tired of that, but as a rule you are pretty glad to get
back to it. I fancy the table at Gresham was kept up about as well as
any boarding school, but we knew that as sure as Tuesday was coming,
roast veal was coming, too; and Wednesday would bring with it veal
potpie; Thursday, beefsteak; and Friday, fish; Saturday, lamb stew with
dumplings; Sunday, roast chicken; and Monday, not much of anything. This
certainty bored us, and sometimes I used to think if I couldn't find
something in the potpie besides veal, I'd scream. I had to do a lot of
looking at the mountains on Wednesday, somehow.
A spread was a godsend, and an invitation to one was not as a rule given
in vain. As Sally Coles and I fox-trotted together in the Gym after
supper, she whispered in my ear: "It's certainly good of you kids to ask
Jo and me. We're crazy about coming."
"We think it's pretty nice of you Seniors to come. You didn't even know
we are to have caramel cake, either, did you?" I answered.
"Heavens, no! I'm mighty glad we didn't accept Mabel Binks's bid to a
Welsh rarebit in her room. We fibbed and told her we had a partial
engagement. It was just with each other but we didn't tell her that, and
now you Sophomores have saved our souls by making our imaginary
engagement a real one. I hate to tell even a white lie, but I'd hate a
deal more to have to go to a spread of Mabel Binks's giving. Don't you
know the hammers will be flying to-night? Can't you hear Mabel and those
rapid Juniors she runs with knocking everything and everybody?"
"Yes, I reckon the only way to save your skin is to stay with her and
help knock. But how does she manage a rarebit when we are not allowed to
have chafing dishes?"
"Manages the same way you and the Tuckers manage to have caramel cake, I
fancy. We are not allowed to have cake, either. Of course it is easier
to hide a cake than it is a chafing dish, especially if the cake is
sliced and there are a half-dozen empty girls to help. I believe some of
the girls keep their chafing dishes under their mattresses. Did you hide
your cake well before you came down to supper? It would be the
psychological moment for some busybody to make an inspecting tour--and
then, good-by, cake!"
"Oh, you scare me to death!" and I grabbed Dee, who was whirling by,
trying a brand new step with a giddy Junior, and, whispering Sally's
warning to her, we beat a hasty retreat. Our beloved cake was on the
table covered with a napkin just as we had left it, seemingly, but on
raising the cloth we discovered that a great wedge had been cut out of
it.
"Well, of all the mean tricks!" spluttered Dee. "Who do you s'pose----?"
"Thank goodness, they only took about a fourth! What is left is enough
to give all seven of us fever blisters. Caramel cake with nuts in it
always gives me fever blisters," I laughed.
"But I don't mind. I'll take the cake, fever blisters and all, every
time."
"Me, too! Well, I hope that the thief will have a mouth full of them,"
said Dee vindictively.
"Well, honey, it's a sight better to have some mean girl take off one
fourth than some teacher in her mistaken zeal take off the whole thing
and give us demerits, besides. Here's your handkerchief," I said,
picking up a little pink crepe de Chine one from the floor.
"Not mine, I don't possess such a thing. Don't you know Zebedee and Dum
and I use the same sized handkerchiefs? When we want a handkerchief, we
want a handkerchief, not a little pink dab. It must be yours."
"No, I haven't any crepe de Chine ones. Here's an initial--B. It
certainly is scented up." The finishing touch to Mabel Binks's costume
on the afternoon we had seen the game at Hill-Top came back to me
suddenly: the strong odor of musk. The handkerchief smelt exactly the
same way.
"Well, Dee, I reckon it won't take a Sherlock Holmes to say who took the
cake, now. Let's not give her back her hanky until to-morrow. If we took
it to her to-night she would know that we are on to her, and she would
be just mean enough to peach on us and have our cake seized." So we
determined, like Dee and Prosper le Gai, to "bide our time."
What a spread we did have and what fun! Dum turned up with two more
girls, members of our class, and there was enough and to spare. Mr.
Tucker was as lavish as Mammy Susan herself. We had no plates or
glasses, but we had plenty of box tops for dishes and our toothbrush
mugs served as loving cups to drink the very sour lemonade Dee made in
the water pitcher. The same knife carved the chicken, then cut the cake.
The olives, always difficult to extract from the bottle, were poured
into the soap dish which I had scoured hard enough to suit the most
squeamish.
"My, what good eats!" exclaimed Jo Barr. "And how did you ever smuggle
that cake within the lines?" We showed her the wrapper it had come in
and the stern note from Mr. Tucker.
"Well, if that doesn't beat all! I tell you there is nothing like being
smart enough to keep the eleventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not get found
out.' I had a whole fruitcake taken bodaciously from me last year. I am
always breaking the eleventh." And that was so. Poor Jo always got
caught up with.
"Well, I tell you one thing," said the wise Sally, "that cake had better
skidoo until danger of inspection passes. Teachers are a suspicious
lot."
I just got it whisked under a down cushion on Dee's bed when there was a
sharp rap on the door. "Come in," we called in a chorus. It was Miss
Sears, rather astonished at our ready invitation to enter.
"Oh, girls, having a spread, are you," glancing sharply at the
innocent-looking packages of crackers and peppermint candy without
coming all the way into the room. "Well, I hope you will have a nice
time."
"Won't you join us, Miss Sears?" asked Dum sweetly.
"Oh, thank you, no. I am on inspection duty to-night," and she closed
the door, never seeing that Jo had wrapped the roasted chicken up in a
spangled scarf she was sporting. That chicken had had all kinds of
dressing in its fat, young life: first its own feathers; then the
dressing, which is really the un-dressing; then the dressing, which is
really the stuffing; then Dum's old sweater; and now Jo's fine scarf.
We proceeded then to put the good, appetizing food where nothing short
of an X-ray could inspect. So thorough were those nine girls that not a
crumb of cake nor scrap of sandwich was left to tell on us. The chicken
bones were some problem but we decided that if each girl took a bone and
disposed of it, it would simplify matters somewhat. Sally got the
wishbone and said she was going to gild it and put it on her "memory
string."
When we had eaten to repletion, we demanded stunts from those gifted
that way. Mary did a dog fight and new turn she had just mastered:
going like a mouse.
"I wish I could think it was a mouse who nibbled the cake," sighed Dum.
"It kind of hurts me all over to feel that somebody did it."
"Well, if it was a mouse, I bet it sounded like this," and Mary imitated
Mabel Binks's nasal speech until we almost had hysterics.
"Why do you fancy she took only a hunk instead of the whole cake?" I
asked. "It would have been so much more like her to take it all."
"That's the reason she only took part. She thought by behaving out of
character she would throw us off the scent," suggested Sally.
"Well, if she wanted to throw us off the scent, she shouldn't have
dropped her handkerchief," said Dee. "But let's forget it and think of
something pleasant. Annie, you sing, please," and she handed Jo's guitar
to the blushing Annie. Annie was always embarrassed when she had to sing
before a few persons. She got her "stage presence" when there was a real
audience.
"What shall it be?" asked Annie.
"Oh, something real sentimental and lovesick," demanded Sally, who was
supposed to be engaged; and with a little humorous twinkle in her
usually sad eyes, Annie sang "Sally in our Alley."
Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Of all the days that's in the week
I dearly love but one day--
And that's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I'm dressed all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Then Dum and Dee stood back to back and buttoned themselves up in their
sweaters, which they had put on hindpart-before and impersonated the
two-headed woman, Milly-Christine, singing a duet, "The mocking bird is
singing o'er her grave," in two distinct keys. That was an awfully
funny stunt and one the Tuckers had made up themselves. Before we had
half exhausted the talent of the assembled guests, the bell rang to warn
us that lights must soon be out and we had to break up.
The next morning there was a fine crop of fever blisters due to the very
rich cake. Annie Pore and Sally Coles were the only ones who escaped
with a whole skin. When I handed Mabel Binks her smelly, pink, crepe de
Chine handkerchief, I noticed that her rather full lips were decorated
with a design similar to my own.
"Here's your handkerchief," I said. "Cake with caramel and nut filling
is awfully rough on the complexion, isn't it?" And the girl had the
decency to blush.