THE VALENTINE PARTY
On the twelfth of February, Mrs. Baird announced after school, that
there would be a masquerade party on Valentine's Day.
"Last year, the old girls will remember, that we had a book party, and
it was great fun," she said, "but this year, I have thought of something
entirely new. I want you all to dress as famous women in history. Choose
the particular heroine you admire most, find a picture of her in the
library, and try to copy it. The attic will be open this afternoon and
you may take what you want from the costume trunks. The Seniors have the
affair in charge and they are offering a prize for the best
representation." The girls clapped their appreciation of this novel idea
and Mrs. Baird continued:
"Don't all come as Queen Elizabeths, and Betsy Rosses, find some one not
so well known, and whom you really admire. There will be lots of
visitors on the platform and I want you all to look your best."
"Jemima," Betty gasped, when they had been dismissed and she, Lois and
Polly were in the latter's room. "Who under the sun can we go as?"
"It is hard, isn't it?" Lois said, "but you had a splendid costume last
year; didn't you go as the Last of the Mohicans?"
"Yes, I have my Indian suit."
"Why don't you go as Pocahontas?" Polly suggested. "Your hair isn't
black, but it would look great in two heavy braids."
"That's just what I'll do. I'll go grab that suit before any of the
others get it." And Betty dashed for the attic.
Lois jumped as the door slammed. "Isn't that just like Bet, she ought to
go as a little whirlwind. Poll, what can we go as?"
"I don't know, let's ask Miss Porter."
"Do you suppose we can find her?"
"Yes, she's probably in her room."
They walked down Faculty Corridor, and tapped gently at the last door on
the left.
"Come in," called a voice, not Miss Porter's.
They entered, to find Miss King, the trained nurse, sitting on the
window box, a bunch of artificial flowers in one hand, and a rather
battered velvet hat in the other.
"Is Miss Porter here?" Lois asked.
"Yes, just a minute," Miss Porter was struggling in the depths of her
closet. "I'll be with you in a second; sit down."
"What is it, costumes?" Miss King asked, when they were seated on the
couch.
"Yes, we thought Miss Porter would help us decide what to wear," Polly
explained.
"I'm here about costumes, too, but it's hardly the same. I'm begging. I
found that poor little wretch Martha, who works in the laundry, out
yesterday without a hat. I told her she'd catch her death of cold and to
go put one on right away. She said she couldn't because she didn't have
any."
"Oh, the poor kid," Polly's sympathy was genuine.
"I've a tam I could give her to wear every day," she said shyly, "if you
think--"
"Think, I know she'd love it. I'll come to your room and get it after
you've had your talk with Miss Porter. Thank you. I was trying to rig up
something out of these," she shook the flowers and hat, "but a tam will
save the day."
While this conversation was going on, Lois had been explaining their
difficulty to Miss Porter.
"'Women in History.' That ought to be easy." Miss Porter thought for a
minute. "Mrs. Baird really wants you to go as your favorite characters?
Lois, who is your favorite heroine?"
"Jeanne d'Arc, the martyred Maid of Orleans," Lois replied dramatically.
"Do you think I might go as Jeanne d'Arc?" she asked eagerly.
"I like that," Polly interrupted. "I thought at the Hallow-e'en party I
was to be a Jeanne d'Arc. Oh, well, I give up my rights for this once;
besides," she added seriously, "I don't really love her the way you do."
"Won't armor be hard to imitate?" Miss King asked.
Miss Porter walked over beside the window and took down a framed picture
from the wall. She held it behind her back.
"Armor won't be necessary," she said. "Lois, have you ever seen the
Jeanne d'Arc painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage, at the Metropolitan
Museum in New York City?"
"Oh, yes, of course, I saw it this vacation. She's standing in the
woods, just in peasant clothes. I love it. She looks as if she were
seeing visions. You remember it, Poll?" Lois was all excitement.
"Here's a copy of it," Miss Porter said, producing the picture. "And
Lois, I declare you look like her. There, you may keep this print to
refer to, it ought to be very easy to find a peasant's costume. Now
Polly, who's your favorite heroine?"
Polly rumpled her hair, hesitated, and rumpled her hair again.
"She's not very well known, at least, I never heard any one talk about
her," she answered, "but I think she's the bravest woman that ever
lived. We had a book about her at home, that I used to read and re-read
on rainy days."
"Well, what's her name?" Lois demanded impatiently.
"Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea," Polly said, very
solemnly.
"Oh, Polly, do you love her, too?" Miss King's eyes were shining. "So do
I."
"You couldn't choose a better woman to portray, dear child," Miss Porter
spoke up. "You'll find the Seniors know all about her. They are studying
about the Crimean War this winter."
"Please tell me who she was, I never even heard of her," said Lois
apologetically.
Miss King began: "She was an Englishwoman, the first one to go out as a
nurse for the soldiers. She thought that if they fought for their
country, the least their country could do for them was to give them
proper care when they were wounded. At first the generals resented her
interfering and thought she was fussy because she wanted clean hospitals
and clean food--"
"But the soldiers adored her," Polly interrupted, and then carried away
by the theme, she continued. "She always walked through the long
hospital wards every night and they used to turn and kiss her shadow on
the wall as she passed, and they named her the Angel of the Crimea. Oh,
she was so brave. All the hardships she went through, cold and hunger."
Polly stopped speaking, but her thoughts went back to the stirring
scenes she had read about and thrilled over so often in a certain little
window seat off the broad stairway in her old home.
Miss King's voice recalled her, "I can give you a costume, one of my
'kerchiefs will do, and I know how to make a Nightingale cap. We'll part
your hair in the middle and fix it low on your neck and--"
They took the rest of the afternoon to discuss the plans. It was not
until the dressing hour that Polly and Lois saw Betty again. She had
apparently found her costume without any trouble, for she had been
skating all afternoon.
"The ice was bully," she greeted them. "Where have you been all this
time?"
"With Miss Porter; did you find your costume?" Polly answered.
"Yes, first thing. Have you decided what you're going as?"
"Yes, but we're not telling," Lois teased. "We thought out peachy ones."
"Ah, please."
"No, never."
"Do you know what any of the others are going as?"
The conversation was being shouted from room to room.
"No, do you?"
"Connie is going as Lady Macbeth."
"What, why she's not historical, she's Shakespearean," Polly protested.
"Connie insists she was a real woman, and that Shakespeare knew all
about her. Anyway, she says she's going to walk in her sleep and say:
'Out, damned spot.'"
"Are you really, Con?" Lois raised her voice so that it could be heard
at the other end of the corridor.
"Am I really what?" came Connie's reply.
"Going as Lady Macbeth at the party?"
"Of course I am. She was a real person."
"Well, she wasn't very well known," Angela added her voice to the
others.
"Maybe not, to the uneducated," Connie said loftily, "but she will be
after the party."
There was a minute of hilarious laughter, that ended as the study hour
bell rang for silence.
After dinner, Lois and Polly, their weighty problem of costumes off
their minds, were talking of valentines.
"If we could only think of something different, there are no really good
ones at the store," Lois said, rummaging in the closet for the peanut
butter jar.
"I know it. I bought some but they are no good. How do you send them,
through the mails?" Polly asked.
"No, the Seniors make a big red box and put it in the Assembly Room
valentine morning, and everybody puts their letters in it. The box is
opened at the party and the valentines are given out."
"How would it be to make some red cardboard hearts and write verses on
them?"
"Make them up, do you mean?"
"Yes, about the girls."
"Fine, let's try--but first let's get comfy."
Lois' definition of comfy was to sit tailor fashion on a bed surrounded
by pillows, with jam, crackers and other eatables near at hand.
Polly preferred the window seat, it was broad and cozy, and you could
always look out of the window when you wanted inspiration.
"All ready," Lois said, sitting down. "Give me a pencil. Now, who
first?"
"You take Bet, and I'll take Connie," Polly said.
They both wrote for a minute, and then Lois read:
"Oh, Betty Thompson, Betty B.,
When you get this please think of me
No, that's no good."
"It is good," Polly protested feebly, "but it's not especially
original."
"That's awful," Lois insisted, drawing a heavy line through the words.
"What's yours to Connie?"
"To Connie, our musician, a valentine we send,
We hope that when she gets this she will her manners mend."
"That rimes," Lois said reluctantly. "But there's nothing the matter
with Con's manners, so it doesn't make sense."
"That's just it," Polly agreed hopelessly. "We can't write sense that
rimes, because we're not poets."
"Betty can, let's get her to help. You go, I'm so comfy."
"All right, lazy one, don't eat all the jam before I get back," and
Polly left, to return in a few minutes with Betty.
"Original valentines, that's a bully idea," she said when the plan had
been explained to her. "Let's start with Connie."
Polly and Lois agreed. They did not think it necessary to say that they
had already started with Connie.
"Four lines are enough, let's see, what rimes with valentine? Columbine,
turpentine--aha! I've got it." Betty scribbled furiously. "How's this?
"Just to tell you, Connie,
That a drop of turpentine,
Will take the blood stain off your hand,
We send this valentine."
"Oh, Bet, that's great. How did you ever think of it?" Polly was filled
with admiration.
"Oh, genius is burning tonight, that's all," Betty laughed. "Now let's
think of one for Angela."
"Something about Latin for her, don't you think?" Polly said.
The suggestion was enough for Betty. "Fine, dine, pine," she chanted.
"Listen:
"Angela, so fair and wise,
Oh hear us sadly pine,
We've tried, but couldn't find you
A Latin valentine."
Lois and Polly looked at each other in speechless wonder, and Betty, now
thoroughly started, wrote absurd jingles to all the girls. She reached
the height of her achievement in Louise Preston.
"Read it again, Bet, it's the best of all," Polly said, delighted. And
Lois spread a cracker inches thick with jam, and presented it--
"To the Poet," she said. "I haven't a laurel wreath so this will have to
do."
"You can't eat it until you've read the poem again," Polly insisted.
"Oh, all right." Betty consulted her pad.
"Some people sigh, and wish for the day,
When work is all gone, and there's only play.
But if the world were black as ink,
We wouldn't care at all
If Lois were always captain
And our hearts her basket ball."
"I don't think much of it, the meter changes," Betty said critically.
"That's all right, as long as it doesn't change in the same verse,"
Polly replied. "I think it's great. Who next?"
"Oh, no more tonight," Betty groaned, "give me my cracker. I'm starved."
"No time, there goes the silence bell." Lois laughed.
"No time? Just watch me," and Betty put the whole cracker in her mouth
at once, and left for her own room.
"Good-night," Polly and Lois called after her, but she could only nod in
response.
The party was at its height. Every age and every country was represented
in the costumes. Betsy Rosses, Grace Darlings and Pocahontases abounded
among the younger children. And there was every known character from
Agrippa of Roman fame, to Queen Victoria, among the upper school. High
ruffs danced with 'kerchiefs, and French heels, with sandals. In fact,
every one had taken so much interest in their costume that the Seniors
and faculty, who were acting as judges, were hard put to find any one
particular girl who outshone the rest.
Lois and Betty had drifted off to a corner of the room, during the
refreshments. They made a curious picture against the boughs of green
that decked the walls. Betty was a stolid Indian maid, from the beaded
moccasins to her parted hair, her face was smeared with grease paint,
and she had tribal marks all over her forehead and cheeks. Polly looked
very efficient in her immaculate nurse's costume, her hair was parted
severely, and she had on a soft white winged cap. Over her uniform she
wore a long gray cape. No one had been able to name her, and after the
guessing was over she spent her time in explaining, and exalting
Florence Nightingale.
As for Lois, Miss Porter was right when she said that she looked like
Bastien-Lepage's picture of Jeanne d'Arc, and certainly rags became her.
She had found a bodice, that laced over a white blouse, and an old
patched skirt. Miss Porter had fixed her hair in a soft careless knot,
and as she stood beside Polly and Betty, a little tired from the
excitement of the evening, there was a far away, dreamy look in her eyes
that bespoke the seeing of glorious visions.
"Louise asked me if we sent her that valentine," Lois said, between sips
of lemonade.
"Did you tell her we did?" Polly inquired.
"Yes, I did, because she said it was the sweetest one she'd received,
and I just had to let her know that Bet wrote it."
Betty said: "Oh, shucks, why did you do that?" and changed the subject
by asking: "Who do you think will get the prize?"
The answer was cut short as Angela, who was Catharine of Russia, and
Connie joined them.
"Well, Lady Macbeth," Polly greeted them, "have you established your
claim to being a real historical character yet?"
"I have, doubter," Connie answered haughtily. "There was a real Lady
Macbeth, Mrs. Baird says so, and, 'sure she is an honorable man, woman,'
I mean, 'Therefore, avaunt and quit my sight, let the earth hide thee,
and thy base mockery.'"
Angela put her hand over Connie's mouth. "Don't mind her, she's been
talking like this all evening," she said. "Did you get the packages that
were in the express-room?"
"Packages, no, where are they?" Polly demanded.
"Why, I saw them before dinner, there were three, just alike, and
addressed to you and Lo, and Bet."
"Let's get them this minute," Betty said, starting for the door. "Come
on with us."
They threaded their way through the crowd of dancing girls, and raced
for the express-room.
"I bet it's a joke," Lois said as she reached for the electric switch.
But when the light was turned on, sure enough there were three packages,
piled one on the other, on the table.
"Open them quick," Connie commanded. "I am dying of curiosity."
Off came the wrappers, and there was a shout of joy as three
heart-shaped boxes of candy appeared.
"How wonderful!"
"My favorite kind!"
"What adorable boxes!"
"They're painted on silk."
"How sweet!"
"Who could have sent them?" Lois asked.
"Mr. Pendleton, perhaps," Betty suggested.
"No, it's not Uncle Roddy's writing," Polly said; "besides, he sent me a
little gold heart, yesterday."
"Open them, perhaps there's a card or something inside," Angela
suggested. This proved to be the case.
Polly opened hers first, and the rest watched eagerly.
"It just says: 'A friend of a very dear friend of yours,'" she read.
"Who can that be? Read yours, Lo."
"Mine says: 'In remembrance of a charming evening.'"
"Listen, I know," Betty exclaimed. "'From a devoted admirer, once mayor
of a certain city.' Don't you see, it's Mr. Whittington, that friend of
your uncle's, Polly."
"Of course it is, and the very dear friend of mine is Uncle Roddy,"
Polly exclaimed delightedly.
"The charming evening must be the night we went to see 'Peter Pan,'"
Lois said. "Wasn't it nice of him to remember it."
"But why does he say 'once mayor of a certain city'?" Connie inquired,
re-reading Betty's card.
"Oh, that's because Bet nicknamed him Lord Mayor of London," Polly
explained. "His name is really Dick Whittington."
They each selected a candy, and munched in happy silence.
"Lois Farwell, Lois Farwell. Oh, Lois," a voice called suddenly from the
depths of the hall. "Where are you?"
"Here, in the express-room," Lois answered; "What is it?"
Dot Mead poked her head in the doorway.
"You're wanted upstairs, right away, hurry!"
"Why?" chorused everybody.
"Oh, never mind," Dot said, mysteriously, "only hurry."
They were no sooner in the Assembly Hall again before Mrs. Baird tapped
the little desk bell for silence.
"Girls, the Seniors have decided to award the prize of the evening to
Jeanne D'Arc, impersonated by Lois Farwell. Lois, will you come here,
dear?"
The girls made an opening through the center of the room. Lois, too
mystified for words, walked slowly up to the platform. Mrs. Baird
presented her with a tiny silver loving cup. "This gives me very great
pleasure, my dear," she said smiling, "because Jeanne D'Arc is one of my
favorite heroines, too."
Lois tried to stammer her thanks. Just then Louise Preston stepped
forward with a wreath of laurel. "Here's the crown that goes with it,
Lo," she whispered. "Kneel down."
Lois knelt on the lower step, and Louise placed the wreath on her head.
"I crown you the most beautiful picture of the evening," she said. And
the girls broke out in heartiest applause.
"I knew it, I knew it," Miss Porter whispered to Miss King. "She's
exquisite. See how her eyes sparkle when she blushes. She's exactly the
sensitive, delicate type, for a Jeanne D'Arc."
"She is lovely," Miss King agreed, in her frank way. "But if I'd had the
awarding of the prize, Polly would have had it. She's a splendid girl,
she gave me a sweater, as well as a tam for Martha. I love that spirit."
Lois went to bed, elated at her success, and the praise she had
received. She smiled delightedly at her reflection in the mirror.
"I wonder," she mused, "if any one will ever tell Mother about this. I
would like her to know but, of course, I can't myself."