It turned out that John did not go after all to Cynthia Rudd's party,
having broken through the ice on the river when he was skating that day,
and, as the boy who pulled him out said, “come within an inch of his
life.” But he took care not to tumble into anything that should keep
him from the next party, which was given with due formality by Melinda
Mayhew.
John had been many a time to the house of Deacon Mayhew, and never
with any hesitation, even if he knew that both the deacon's
daughters--Melinda and Sophronia were at home. The only fear he had felt
was of the deacon's big dog, who always surlily watched him as he came
up the tan-bark walk, and made a rush at him if he showed the least sign
of wavering. But upon the night of the party his courage vanished, and
he thought he would rather face all the dogs in town than knock at the
front door.
The parlor was lighted up, and as John stood on the broad flagging
before the front door, by the lilac-bush, he could hear the sound of
voices--girls' voices--which set his heart in a flutter. He could face
the whole district school of girls without flinching,--he didn't mind
'em in the meeting-house in their Sunday best; but he began to be
conscious that now he was passing to a new sphere, where the girls are
supreme and superior, and he began to feel for the first time that he
was an awkward boy. The girl takes to society as naturally as a duckling
does to the placid pond, but with a semblance of shy timidity; the boy
plunges in with a great splash, and hides his shy awkwardness in noise
and commotion.
When John entered, the company had nearly all come. He knew them every
one, and yet there was something about them strange and unfamiliar. They
were all a little afraid of each other, as people are apt to be when
they are well dressed and met together for social purposes in the
country. To be at a real party was a novel thing for most of them,
and put a constraint upon them which they could not at once overcome.
Perhaps it was because they were in the awful parlor,--that carpeted
room of haircloth furniture, which was so seldom opened. Upon the wall
hung two certificates framed in black,--one certifying that, by the
payment of fifty dollars, Deacon Mayhew was a life member of the
American Tract Society, and the other that, by a like outlay of bread
cast upon the waters, his wife was a life member of the A. B. C. F. M.,
a portion of the alphabet which has an awful significance to all New
England childhood. These certificates are a sort of receipt in full for
charity, and are a constant and consoling reminder to the farmer that he
has discharged his religious duties.
There was a fire on the broad hearth, and that, with the tallow candles
on the mantelpiece, made quite an illumination in the room, and enabled
the boys, who were mostly on one side of the room, to see the girls, who
were on the other, quite plainly. How sweet and demure the girls looked,
to be sure! Every boy was thinking if his hair was slick, and feeling
the full embarrassment of his entrance into fashionable life. It was
queer that these children, who were so free everywhere else, should
be so constrained now, and not know what to do with themselves. The
shooting of a spark out upon the carpet was a great relief, and was
accompanied by a deal of scrambling to throw it back into the fire, and
caused much giggling. It was only gradually that the formality was at
all broken, and the young people got together and found their tongues.
John at length found himself with Cynthia Rudd, to his great delight and
considerable embarrassment, for Cynthia, who was older than John, never
looked so pretty. To his surprise he had nothing to say to her. They had
always found plenty to talk about before--but now nothing that he could
think of seemed worth saying at a party.
“It is a pleasant evening,” said John.
“It is quite so,” replied Cynthia.
“Did you come in a cutter?” asked John anxiously.
“No; I walked on the crust, and it was perfectly lovely walking,” said
Cynthia, in a burst of confidence.
“Was it slippery?” continued John.
“Not very.”
John hoped it would be slippery--very--when he walked home with
Cynthia, as he determined to do, but he did not dare to say so, and the
conversation ran aground again. John thought about his dog and his sled
and his yoke of steers, but he didn't see any way to bring them into
conversation. Had she read the “Swiss Family Robinson”? Only a little
ways. John said it was splendid, and he would lend it to her, for which
she thanked him, and said, with such a sweet expression, she should be
so glad to have it from him. That was encouraging.
And then John asked Cynthia if she had seen Sally Hawkes since the
husking at their house, when Sally found so many red ears; and didn't
she think she was a real pretty girl.
“Yes, she was right pretty;” and Cynthia guessed that Sally knew it
pretty well. But did John like the color of her eyes?
No; John didn't like the color of her eyes exactly.
“Her mouth would be well enough if she didn't laugh so much and show
her teeth.”
John said her mouth was her worst feature.
“Oh, no,” said Cynthia warmly; “her mouth is better than her nose.”
John didn't know but it was better than her nose, and he should like
her looks better if her hair wasn't so dreadful black.
But Cynthia, who could afford to be generous now, said she liked black
hair, and she wished hers was dark. Whereupon John protested that he
liked light hair--auburn hair--of all things.
And Cynthia said that Sally was a dear, good girl, and she didn't
believe one word of the story that she only really found one red ear at
the husking that night, and hid that and kept pulling it out as if it
were a new one.
And so the conversation, once started, went on as briskly as
possible about the paring-bee, and the spelling-school, and the new
singing-master who was coming, and how Jack Thompson had gone to
Northampton to be a clerk in a store, and how Elvira Reddington, in
the geography class at school, was asked what was the capital of
Massachusetts, and had answered “Northampton,” and all the school
laughed. John enjoyed the conversation amazingly, and he half wished
that he and Cynthia were the whole of the party.
But the party had meantime got into operation, and the formality was
broken up when the boys and girls had ventured out of the parlor into
the more comfortable living-room, with its easy-chairs and everyday
things, and even gone so far as to penetrate the kitchen in their
frolic. As soon as they forgot they were a party, they began to enjoy
themselves.
But the real pleasure only began with the games. The party was nothing
without the games, and, indeed, it was made for the games. Very likely
it was one of the timid girls who proposed to play something, and
when the ice was once broken, the whole company went into the business
enthusiastically. There was no dancing. We should hope not. Not in the
deacon's house; not with the deacon's daughters, nor anywhere in this
good Puritanic society. Dancing was a sin in itself, and no one could
tell what it would lead to. But there was no reason why the boys and
girls shouldn't come together and kiss each other during a whole evening
occasionally. Kissing was a sign of peace, and was not at all like
taking hold of hands and skipping about to the scraping of a wicked
fiddle.
In the games there was a great deal of clasping hands, of going round in
a circle, of passing under each other's elevated arms, of singing about
my true love, and the end was kisses distributed with more or less
partiality, according to the rules of the play; but, thank Heaven, there
was no fiddler. John liked it all, and was quite brave about paying all
the forfeits imposed on him, even to the kissing all the girls in the
room; but he thought he could have amended that by kissing a few of them
a good many times instead of kissing them all once.
But John was destined to have a damper put upon his enjoyment. They were
playing a most fascinating game, in which they all stand in a circle and
sing a philandering song, except one who is in the center of the ring,
and holds a cushion. At a certain word in the song, the one in
the center throws the cushion at the feet of some one in the ring,
indicating thereby the choice of a “mate” and then the two sweetly kneel
upon the cushion, like two meek angels, and--and so forth. Then the
chosen one takes the cushion and the delightful play goes on. It is very
easy, as it will be seen, to learn how to play it. Cynthia was holding
the cushion, and at the fatal word she threw it down, not before John,
but in front of Ephraim Leggett. And they two kneeled, and so forth.
John was astounded. He had never conceived of such perfidy in the female
heart. He felt like wiping Ephraim off the face of the earth, only
Ephraim was older and bigger than he. When it came his turn at
length,--thanks to a plain little girl for whose admiration he didn't
care a straw,--he threw the cushion down before Melinda Mayhew with
all the devotion he could muster, and a dagger look at Cynthia. And
Cynthia's perfidious smile only enraged him the more. John felt wronged,
and worked himself up to pass a wretched evening.
When supper came, he never went near Cynthia, and busied himself in
carrying different kinds of pie and cake, and red apples and cider,
to the girls he liked the least. He shunned Cynthia, and when he was
accidentally near her, and she asked him if he would get her a glass of
cider, he rudely told her--like a goose as he was--that she had better
ask Ephraim. That seemed to him very smart; but he got more and more
miserable, and began to feel that he was making himself ridiculous.
Girls have a great deal more good sense in such matters than boys.
Cynthia went to John, at length, and asked him simply what the matter
was. John blushed, and said that nothing was the matter. Cynthia said
that it wouldn't do for two people always to be together at a party; and
so they made up, and John obtained permission to “see” Cynthia home.
It was after half-past nine when the great festivities at the Deacon's
broke up, and John walked home with Cynthia over the shining crust
and under the stars. It was mostly a silent walk, for this was also an
occasion when it is difficult to find anything fit to say. And John was
thinking all the way how he should bid Cynthia good-night; whether
it would do and whether it wouldn't do, this not being a game, and
no forfeits attaching to it. When they reached the gate, there was
an awkward little pause. John said the stars were uncommonly bright.
Cynthia did not deny it, but waited a minute and then turned abruptly
away, with “Good-night, John!”
“Good-night, Cynthia!”
And the party was over, and Cynthia was gone, and John went home in a
kind of dissatisfaction with himself.
It was long before he could go to sleep for thinking of the new world
opened to him, and imagining how he would act under a hundred different
circumstances, and what he would say, and what Cynthia would say; but a
dream at length came, and led him away to a great city and a brilliant
house; and while he was there, he heard a loud rapping on the under
floor, and saw that it was daylight.