"MR. KINCAID AND DORRIS."
"For, if I have _some_ grown folks, mother, perhaps I ought to have
_other_ grown folks,--'to keep the balance true.' Besides, Mr.
Kincaid and Dorris always like the _little_ nice times."
From the day when Dorris Kincaid had come over with the gray glass
vase and her repeated thanks, when the flowers had done their
ministry and faded, there had been little simple courtesies, each
way, between the opposite houses; and once Kenneth and his sister
had taken tea with the Ripwinkleys, and they had played "crambo"
and "consequences" in the evening. The real little game of
"consequences," of which this present friendliness was a link, was
going on all the time, though they did not stop to read the lines as
they folded them down, and "what the world said" was not one of the
items in their scheme of it at all.
It would have been something worth while to have followed Hazel as
she went her rounds, asking quietly at each house to see Mrs. This
or That, "as she had a message;" and being shown, like a little
representative of an almost extinct period, up into the parlor, or
the dressing-room of each lady, and giving her quaint errand.
"I am Hazel Ripwinkley," she would say, "and my mother sends her
compliments, and would like to have Lilian,"--or whoever
else,--"come at four o'clock to-day, and spend the afternoon and
take tea. I'm to have a little party such as she used to have, and
nobody is to be much dressed up, and we are only to play games."
"Why, that is charming!" cried Mrs. Ashburne; for the feeling of
her own sweet early days, and the old B---- Square house, came over
her as she heard the words. "It is Lilian's music afternoon; but
never mind; give my kind compliments to your mother, and she will be
very happy to come."
And Mrs. Ashburne stooped down and kissed Hazel, when she went away.
She stood in the deep carved stone entrance-way to Mrs. Geoffrey's
house, in the same fearless, Red Riding Hood fashion, just as she
would have waited in any little country porch up in Homesworth,
where she had need indeed to knock.
Not a whit dismayed was she either, when the tall manservant opened
to her, and admitted her into the square, high, marble-paved hall,
out of which great doors were set wide into rooms rich and quiet
with noble adorning and soft shading,--where pictures made such a
magic upon the walls, and books were piled from floor to ceiling;
and where her little figure was lost as she went in, and she
hesitated to take a seat anywhere, lest she should be quite hidden
in some great arm-chair or sofa corner, and Mrs. Geoffrey should not
see her when she came down.
So, as the lady entered, there she was, upright and waiting, on her
two feet, in her nankeen dress, just within the library doors, with
her face turned toward the staircase.
"I am Hazel Ripwinkley," she began; as if she had said, I am
Pease-blossom or Mustard-seed; "I go to school with Ada." And went
on, then, with her compliments and her party. And at the end she
said, very simply,--
"Miss Craydocke is coming, and she knows the games."
"Miss Craydocke, of Orchard Street? And where do you live?"
"In Aspen Street, close by, in Uncle Oldways' house. We haven't
lived there very long,--only this winter; before that we always
lived in Homesworth."
"And Homesworth is in the country? Don't you miss that?"
"Yes; but Aspen Street isn't very bad; we've got a garden. Besides,
we like streets and neighbors."
Then she added,--for her little witch-stick felt spiritually the
quality of what she spoke to,--"Wouldn't Mr. Geoffrey come for Ada
in the evening?"
"I haven't the least doubt he would!" said Mrs. Geoffrey, her face
all alive with exquisite and kindly amusement, and catching the
spirit of the thing from the inimitable simplicity before her, such
as never, she did believe, had walked into anybody's house before,
in this place and generation, and was no more to be snubbed than a
flower or a breeze or an angel.
It was a piece of Witch Hazel's witchery, or inspiration, that she
named Miss Craydocke; for Miss Craydocke was an old, dear friend of
Mrs. Geoffrey's, in that "heart of things" behind the fashions,
where the kingdom is growing up. But of course Hazel could not have
known that; something in the lady's face just made her think of the
same thing in Miss Craydocke's, and so she spoke, forgetting to
explain, nor wondering in the very least, when she was met with
knowledge.
It was all divining, though, from the beginning to the end. That was
what took her into these homes, rather than to a score of other
places up and down the self-same streets, where, if she had got in
at all, she would have met strange, lofty stares, and freezing
"thank you's," and "engagements."
"I've found the real folks, mother, and they're all coming!" she
cried, joyfully, running in where Mrs. Ripwinkley was setting little
vases and baskets about on shelf and table, between the white,
plain, muslin draperies of the long parlor windows. In vases and
baskets were sweet May flowers; bunches of deep-hued, rich-scented
violets, stars of blue and white periwinkle, and Miss Craydocke's
lilies of the valley in their tall, cool leaves; each kind gathered
by itself in clusters and handfuls. Inside the wide, open fireplace,
behind the high brass fender and the shining andirons, was a
"chimney flower pot," country fashion, of green lilac boughs,--not
blossoms,--and woodbine sprays, and crimson and white tulips. The
room was fair and fragrant, and the windows were wide open upon
vines and grass.
"It looks like you, mother, just as Mrs. Geoffrey's house looks like
her. Houses ought to look like people, I think."
"There's your surprise, children. We shouldn't be doing it right
without a surprise, you know."
And the surprise was not dolls' pelerines, but books. "Little Women"
was one, which sent Diana and Hazel off for a delicious two hours'
read up in their own room until dinner.
After dinner, Miss Craydocke came, in her purple and white striped
mohair and her white lace neckerchief; and at three o'clock Uncle
Titus walked in, with his coat pockets so bulgy and rustling and
odorous of peppermint and sassafras, that it was no use to pretend
to wait and be unconscious, but a pure mercy to unload him so that
he might be able to sit down.
Nobody knows to this day where he got them; he must have ordered
them somewhere, one would think, long enough before to have special
moulds and implements made; but there were large, beautiful
cockles,--not of the old flour-paste sort, but of clear, sparkling
sugar, rose-color, and amber, and white, with little slips of tinted
paper tucked within, and these printed delicately with pretty rhymes
and couplets, from real poets; things to be truly treasured, yet
simple, for children's apprehension, and fancy, and fun. And there
were "Salem gibraltars," such as we only get out of Essex County now
and then, for a big charitable Fair, when Salem and everywhere else
gets its spirit up to send its best and most especial; and there
were toys and devices in sugar--flowers and animals, hats, bonnets,
and boots, apples, and cucumbers,--such as Diana and Hazel, and even
Desire and Helena had never seen before.
"It isn't quite fair," said good Miss Craydocke. "We were to go back
to the old, simple fashions of things; and here you are beginning
over again already with sumptuous inventions. It's the very way it
came about before, till it was all spoilt."
"No," said Uncle Titus, stoutly. "It's only 'Old _and_ New,'--the
very selfsame good old notions brought to a little modern
perfection. They're not French flummery, either; and there's not a
drop of gin, or a flavor of prussic acid, or any other abominable
chemical, in one of those contrivances. They're as innocent as they
look; good honest mint and spice and checkerberry and lemon and
rose. I know the man that made 'em!"
Helena Ledwith began to think that the first person, singular or
plural, might have a good time; but that awful third! Helena's
"they" was as potent and tremendous as her mother's.
"It's nice," she said to Hazel; "but they don't have inch things. I
never saw them at a party. And they don't play games; they always
dance. And it's broad, hot daylight; and--you haven't asked a single
boy!"
"Why, I don't know any! Only Jimmy Scarup; and I guess he'd rather
play ball, and break windows!"
"Jimmy Scarup!" And Helena turned away, hopeless of Hazel's
comprehending.