NANCY PLANS A PARTY
"What are you doing, Nonie?"
Pencil poised in mid-air; Nancy leaned down from her Nest where she had
been working. Aunt Milly was nodding in her chair, her finger and
thumb between the pages of "Sarah Crewe," from which she had been
reading until she had succumbed to the drowsy sounds of the summer air.
Nonie had been tiptoeing back and forth across the grass making funny,
little, inarticulate sounds in her throat.
"I'm playing party," Nonie stopped under the apple tree and lifted a
thoughtful face to Nancy. "When I grow up I shall have ten children
and have parties all the time. There'll be harps and violins and drums
and lots and lots to eat. And I shall wear velvet, with a long train,
and carry a big fan." She sighed. "Do you always have to be beautiful
to do beautiful things?"
"Just doing beautiful things makes you seem beautiful," explained Nancy.
Nonie was not satisfied. "B'lindy makes beautiful cakes and pies but
_she_ isn't beautiful. And Jonathan puts seeds in the ground that grow
into pretty flowers but--he's ugly! Could I do beautiful things
and--look like this?" She spread out her shabby skirts.
Behind the troubled gaze Nancy caught the gleam of a vision.
"You can--you can! Nonie, no one can ever take your dreams away from
you!"
"Not even Liz," echoed Nonie, bitterly.
A few days before a tragedy had touched Nonie's life. From out of
nowhere there had wandered into her affections a hungry-eyed, maltese
cat with two small babies. Nonie had mothered them passionately,
tenderly. She had hidden scraps of food from her own meagre portions
to feed them; she had fitted a box with old rags and had concealed it
beneath the loose plankings of the shed. Then, mother cat, satisfied
that her babies were in good hands, had disappeared.
"Even kittens can't have mothers," Nonie had thought, perplexed over
the ways of the world. "Never mind, darlings, Nonie will love you,"
and she had kissed each small puss as a pledge of her devotion.
But a week later she found both kittens lying stiff and cold behind the
shed. At her passionate outburst, Liz had told her that "_she_ wa'nt a
goin' to have any _cats_ under foot!"
Nonie had taken her sorrow to the Bird's-Nest and Nancy and Aunt Milly
had managed to soothe her. But she would not forgive Liz.
"If that mother should ever come back how could I face her," she had
asked very seriously. "She'd know it was my fault--because I left
them! I wish--I wish babies never had to be left--without mothers!"
Thereupon had taken shape the determination in Nonie's heart to some
day have ten children whom she would never, never leave--not for a
moment!
"Don't forget the fairy godmother, Nonie, and her wand. Some day
she'll turn your old dress into gold cloth and put a crown upon your
head." Nancy made her tone light; she could not bear to see the shadow
on the child's face. She jumped down from the tree.
"I've just thought of the loveliest plan! Nonie, let's have a party at
Happy House!"
"A _real_ party?"
"Yes, a real party--with lots and _lots_ to eat! It's too warm for
velvet, but how would you like to wear a white dress of mine that's
dreadfully small for me? I'm sure Aunt Milly's clever fingers can fix
it over. B'lindy shall make a cake--like the Governor had, and Aunt
Sabrina shall get out all the old silver and linen."
Nonie's face said plainly that she could not believe her ears!
"Honest?" she whispered, glancing toward Aunt Milly.
"Well----" Nancy laughed. "Of course, we'll have to consult Aunt
Sabrina and Aunt Milly and B'lindy. Suppose we cough very loudly--then
Aunt Milly will waken!"
An hour earlier, as Nancy sat in the Nest making notes here and there
upon her manuscript, the thought of the party had not entered her head.
But once there, it grew rapidly. Besides, her heart was very light;
she wanted everyone else to celebrate with her--her play was done! She
had worked day and night; the tiny shadows under her eyes told that.
But in her exultation any physical weariness was forgotten.
In the still hours of the night before she had dashed off a sleepy line
to Claire..... "The Gypsy Sweetheart is done. Darling, pray for me!
My fate lies in those pages. I may soon be with you at
Merrycliffe--that is, if you still want me."
The last line was an afterthought. That day a curious letter had come
from Claire, perplexing to Nancy because Claire's usual complaining
tone had given place to mysterious rejoicing. "I can't tell you
_anything_, Nancy, because I promised I wouldn't, but some day you're
going to know. I'm the most wildly happy girl in the world," and
beyond that the maddening creature had written nothing. "I believe
she's engaged," thought Nancy, indignant and hurt, too, that Claire
should let any such thing come into her life without some hint to her
dearest friends.
After repeated coughing Aunt Milly wakened with a start and tried to
look as though she had not been asleep. Nancy told her of the party
they wanted to have at Happy House. She had a way of telling it that
made it seem very simple and easy. After one frightened gasp, Aunt
Milly promised to help win Aunt Sabrina's and B'lindy's approval.
Nothing, perhaps, so marked the amazing changes in Happy House worked
by Nancy's stay than the eagerness with which B'lindy, and even Miss
Sabrina, accepted the suggestion of the "party."
They sat with Nancy and Aunt Milly on the hollyhock porch after supper
excitedly making plans; at least B'lindy and Aunt Milly were excited;
Aunt Sabrina had moments of alarm--it had been so very long since they
had entertained anyone!
"Do let me plan the whole thing," begged Nancy. "I'm good at such
things. I always had charge of all the class stunts. Ever since I've
been here I've pictured how wonderfully this old house would open up
for entertaining. We'll have flowers in all the rooms--heaps and heaps
of them. But let's serve out under the trees!"
B'lindy and Miss Sabrina were horrified at such an idea. When guests
had come before to Happy House they had eaten in dignified manner from
the dining-room table.
"But your garden is so lovely," Nancy cried. She made a vivid picture
of how it would look on the day of the party. Her enthusiasm won her
point; even Aunt Sabrina's doubt had to yield before her youthful
determination.
So it was agreed that ice-cream and cake--like the Governor had
had--should be passed from tables set under the old trees, and in the
dining-room there would be punch in the old punch bowl that had, in
years gone by, honored many a distinguished gathering under the old
roof. And Nancy should have her "heaps" of flowers everywhere.
"Maybe we'd better keep the sitting-room closed," suggested Miss
Sabrina, faintly. She was too proud to tell them that she could not
bear the thought of curious eyes staring at the mantel with its ragged
crack, everlasting reminder of the storm that marked the falling of the
shadow over Happy House.
But Nancy would not listen even to this--flowers everywhere and doors
and windows open, everywhere.
When Nancy had declared that everyone in Freedom must be invited--even
the Hopworths and Peter Hyde, Miss Sabrina had made her last protest.
"The Leavitts, Anne----" she had begun.
"Oh, _bless_ the Leavitts," Nancy had laughingly broken in, "dear Aunt
Sabrina, don't you see that it's your chance to show that--that catty
Mrs. Eaton, who's just a common storekeeper's wife and's only been here
on North Hero one and one-half generations, that _you_, Sabrina
Leavitt, are not going to be told by _her_ what you should do and what
you shouldn't do!"
Miss Sabrina had not forgotten what she had suffered from Mrs. Eaton's
cruel tongue; Nancy's impetuous argument carried convincing weight. So
Nancy triumphantly added to her list, Mr. Daniel Hopworth, Miss
(Elizabeth or Eliza, she wondered) Hopworth, Miss Nonie Hopworth and
Master David Hopworth.
For the next few days such a bustle followed that Nancy wondered why
she had not thought of it before! While B'lindy opened shutters and
swept and dusted and aired, the sunshine poured into corners of the old
house that had never seen it before. Miss Sabrina unlocked old chests
and sorted out and polished old silver and washed and pressed old linen
of exquisite fineness. Aunt Milly made over the white dress for Nonie.
Nancy wrote the invitations, in Miss Sabrina's name, and despatched
them by Webb to what B'lindy called "Tom, Dick and Harry" in Freedom.
Nancy, herself, invited Webb.
"I'll tell you a secret about this party, Webb! I want everyone in
Freedom to know that Happy House _is_ a happy house; I want them to see
how wonderful Aunt Milly is and that she _wouldn't_ be happier in her
grave! I want them to see the old mantel and the lovely rooms. And I
want them to know that the Hopworth's are invited!"
"Wal, I guess Freedom folks never saw the like before at Happy House,
leastways not sence the old missus was alive," the old man had
excitedly answered. "You _bet_ old Webb'll be thar!" Nancy knew that
as each invitation was delivered at each door there would go with it an
excited account of the strange "sociable" that could include the
Hopworths, and his added opinion that "thet gal'd sartin'ly started
things happenin' at Happy House."
The smithy's son was engaged to help Jonathan cut the grass, weed the
gardens and clip the borders, under Nancy's direction. So that, while
amazing changes were going on within the house, changes equally
startling were transforming the garden. Old Jonathan straightened more
than once to view with pride the results of their work.
"This garden used to be the pride of the Island," he muttered, seeing
in its restored trimness something of its old-time beauty. "But it's
young hands that's needed."
"It's beautiful, _now_," Nancy had declared. "It's the loveliest
garden I ever saw, Jonathan," and she thought of Nonie's quaint words:
"Jonathan puts in seeds that grow into pretty flowers and he's ugly!"
Yes, the wrinkled, leathery face under the old hat was not beautiful,
and yet something of the beauty of the flowers he grew was reflected in
the expression of the old eyes that bent so tenderly over them.
"That's life," reflected Nancy, indulging in a moment's philosophizing.
"It's really what we think and do that makes us beautiful or not
beautiful!"
They had worked late; the long shadows of the afternoon danced in lacy
patterns over the gray walls of the house. Nancy, watching them,
thought of that first disappointment she had felt upon viewing Happy
House. Then it had seemed an ugly pile of stones, severely lined. Now
it was more like a breathing Thing. It had sheltered and seen shaped
so many lives; it held a future, too; it must stand protectingly for
others after Aunt Milly and Aunt Sabrina had gone!
It had, now, with its blinds fastened back, an awakened, expectant
look, as of eyes suddenly opened after a long, long sleep.
Then into Nancy's happy meditations flashed the disturbing thought that
nothing about the garden or the house belonged in any way to her!
"It's just _like_ me to forget," she declared aloud, shouldering her
hoe and turning toward the carriage barn. "And like me to get fond of
it all!"
"Anyway, Nonie'll have her party, and even if there isn't a harp and a
velvet train there'll be lots to eat or B'lindy's name isn't B'lindy.
I wonder," and Nancy addressed the distant outline of the Judson's
barns, "how Peter Hyde'll _ever_ act at a tea-party!"