Nancy's seventeenth birthday was past, and it was on the full of the
August moon that she finally "came out" in the Hamilton barn. It was the
barn's first public appearance too, for the villagers had not been
invited to the private Saturday night dances that took place during the
brief reign of the Hamilton boys and girls. Beulah was more excited
about the barn than it was about Nancy, and she was quite in sympathy
with this view of things, as the entire Carey family, from mother to
Peter, was fairly bewitched with its new toy. Day by day it had grown
more enchanting as fresh ideas occurred to one or another, and
especially to Osh Popham, who lived, breathed, and had his being in the
barn, and who had lavished his ingenuity and skill upon its fittings.
Not a word did he vouchsafe to the general public of the extraordinary
nature of these fittings, nor of the many bewildering features of the
entertainment which was to take place within the almost sacred
precincts. All the Carey festivities had heretofore been in the house
save the one in honor of the hanging of the weather vane, which had been
an out-of-door function, attended by the whole village. Now the
community was all agog to disport itself in pastures new; its curiosity
being further piqued by the reception of written invitations, a
convention not often indulged in by Beulah.
The eventful day dawned, clear and cool; a day with an air like liquid
amber, that properly belonged to September,--the weather prophet really
shifting it into August from pure kindness, having taken a sticky dogday
out and pitchforked it into the next month.
The afternoon passed in various stages of plotting, planning, and
palpitation, and every girl in Beulah, of dancing age, was in her
bedroom, trying her hair a new way. The excitement increased a thousand
fold when it was rumored that an Admiral (whatever that might be) had
arrived at the hotel and would appear at the barn in full uniform. After
that, nobody's braids or puffs would go right!
Nancy never needed to study Paris plates, for her hair dressed itself
after a fashion set by all the Venuses and Cupids and little Loves since
the world began. It curled, whether she would or no, so the only method
was to part the curls and give them a twist into a coil, from which
vagrant spirals fell to the white nape of her neck. Or, if she felt gay
and coquettish as she did tonight, the curls were pinned high to the
crown of her head and the runaways rioted here and there, touching her
cheek, her ear, her neck, never ugly, wherever they ran.
Nancy had a new yellow organdy made "almost to touch," and a twist of
yellow ribbon in her hair. Kathleen and Julia were in the white dresses
brought them by Cousin Ann, and Mrs. Carey wore her new black silk, made
with a sweeping little train. Her wedding necklace of seed pearls was
around her neck, and a tall comb of tortoise shell and pearls rose from
the low-coiled knot of her shining hair.
The family "received" in the old carriage house, and when everybody had
assembled, to the number of seventy-five or eighty, the door into the
barn was thrown open majestically by Gilbert, in his character as head
of the house of Carey. Words fail to describe the impression made by the
barn as it was introduced to the company, Nancy's debut sinking into
positive insignificance beside it.
Dozens of brown japanned candle-lanterns hung from the beamed ceiling,
dispensing little twinkles of light here and there, while larger ones
swung from harness pegs driven into the sides of the walls. The soft
gray-brown of the old weathered lumber everywhere, made a lovely
background for the birch-bark brackets, and the white birch-bark vases
that were filled with early golden-rod, mixed with tall Queen Anne's
lace and golden glow. The quaint settles surrounding the sides of the
room were speedily filled by the admiring guests. Colonel Wheeler's tiny
upright piano graced the platform in the "tie up." Miss Susie Bennett,
the church organist, was to play it, aided now and then by Mrs. Carey or
Julia. Osh Popham was to take turns on the violin with a cousin from
Warren's Mills, who was reported to be the master fiddler of the county.
When all was ready Mrs. Carey stood between the master fiddler and Susie
Bennett, and there was a sudden hush in the room. "Friends and
neighbors," she said, "we now declare the Hall of Happy Hours open for
the general good of the village. If it had not been for the generosity
of our landlord, Mr. Lemuel Hamilton, we could never have given you this
pleasure, and had not our helpers been so many, we could never have made
the place so beautiful. Before the general dancing begins there will be
a double quadrille of honor, in which all those will take part who have
driven a nail, papered or painted a wall, dug a spadeful of earth, or
done any work in or about the Yellow House."
"Three cheers for Mrs. Carey!" called Bill Harmon, and everybody
complied lustily.
"Three cheers for Lemuel Hamilton!" and the rafters of the barn rang
with the response.
Just then the Admiral changed his position to conceal the moisture that
was beginning to gather in his eyes; and the sight of a personage so
unspeakably magnificent in a naval uniform induced Osh Popham to cry
spontaneously: "Three cheers for the Admiral! I don't know what he ever
done, but he looks as if he could, all right!" at which everybody
cheered and roared, and the Admiral to his great surprise made a speech,
during which the telltale tears appeared so often in his eyes and in his
voice, that Osh Popham concluded privately that if the naval hero ever
did meet an opposing battleship he would be likelier to drown the enemy
than fire into them!
The double quadrille of honor passed off with much elegance, everybody
not participating in it being green with envy because he was not. Mrs.
Carey and the Admiral were partners; Nancy danced with Mr. Popham,
Kathleen with Digby, Julia with Bill Harmon. The other couples were Mrs.
Popham and Gilbert, Lallie Joy and Cyril Lord, Olive and Nat Harmon,
while Mrs. Bill led out a very shy and uncomfortable gentleman who had
dug the ditches for Cousin Ann's expensive pipes.
Then the fun and the frolic began in earnest. The girls had been
practising the old-fashioned contra dances all summer, and training the
younger generation in them at the Vacation School. The old folks needed
no rehearsal! If you had waked any of them in the night suddenly they
could have called the changes for Speed the Plough, The Soldier's Joy,
The Maid in the Pump Room, or Hull's Victory.
Money Musk brought Nancy and Mr. Henry Lord on to the floor as head
couple; a result attained by that young lady by every means, fair or
foul, known to woman; at least a rudimentary, budding woman of seventeen
summers! His coming to the party at all was regarded by Mother Carey,
who had spent the whole force of her being in managing it, as nothing
short of a miracle. He had accepted partly from secret admiration of his
handsome neighbor, partly to show the village that he did not choose
always to be a hermit crab, partly out of curiosity to see the unusual
gathering. Having crawled out of his selfish shell far enough to grace
the occasion, he took another step when Nancy asked him to dance. It was
pretty to see her curtsey when she put the question, pretty to see the
air of triumph with which she led him to the head of the line, and
positively delightful to the onlookers to see Hen Lord doing right and
left, ladies' chain, balance to opposite and cast off, at a girl's beck
and call. He was not a bad dancer, when his sluggish blood once got into
circulation; and he was considerably more limber at the end of Money
Musk, considerably less like a wooden image, than at the beginning
of it.
In the interval between this astounding exhibition and the Rochester
Schottisch which followed it, Henry Lord went up to Mrs. Carey, who was
sitting in a corner a little apart from her guests for the moment.
"Shall I go to South America, or shall I not?" he asked her in an
undertone. "Olive seems pleasantly settled, and Cyril tells me you will
consent to take him into your family for six months; still, I would like
a woman's advice."
Mother Carey neither responded, "I should prefer not to take the
responsibility of advising you," nor "Pray do as you think best"; she
simply said, in a tone she might have used to a fractious boy:
"I wouldn't go, Mr. Lord! Wait till Olive and Cyril are a little older.
Cyril will grow into my family instead of into his own; Olive will learn
to do without you; worse yet, you will learn to do without your
children. Stay at home and have Olive come back to you and her brother
every week end. South America is a long distance when there are only
three of you!"
Prof. Lord was not satisfied with Mrs. Carey's tone. It was so maternal
that he expected at any moment she might brush his hair, straighten his
necktie, and beg him not to sit up too late, but his instinct told him
it was the only tone he was ever likely to hear from her, and so he said
reluctantly, "Very well; I confess that I really rely on your judgment,
and I will decline the invitation."
"I think you are right," Mrs. Carey answered, wondering if the man would
ever see his duty with his own eyes, or whether he had deliberately
blinded himself for life.