A FLORAL WELCOME
BREAKFAST next morning was not the gay, cheery feast it usually was.
Mrs. Maynard came to the table with her hat on, and the children seemed
suddenly to realize afresh that their mother was going away.
“Oh,” said Marjorie, “I wish I could go to sleep for six weeks, and then
wake up the day you come home again.”
“Oh, you have that farewell feeling now,” said Mr. Maynard; “but after
we’re really gone, and you find out what fun it is to have no one to
rule over you, you’ll begin to wish we would stay six months instead of
six weeks.” Marjorie cast a look of reproach at her father.
“Not much!” she said, emphatically. “I wish you’d only stay six days, or
six hours.”
“Or six minutes,” added Kitty. But at last the melancholy meal was over,
and the good-bys really began.
“Cut it short,” said Mr. Maynard, fearing the grief of the emotional
children would affect his wife’s nerves.
They clung alternately to either parent, now bewailing the coming
separation, and again cheering up as Mr. Maynard made delightful
promises of sending back letters, postcards, pictures and gifts from
every stopping-place on their journey.
“And be very good to Miss Larkin,” said Mrs. Maynard, by way of final
injunction. “Cheer her up if she is lonely, and then you’ll forget that
you’re lonely yourselves.” This was a novel idea.
“Oho!” said King, “I guess she’d better cheer us up.”
“Oh, the four of you can cheer each other,” said Mr. Maynard. “Come,
Helen, the carriage is waiting—Good-by for the last time, chickadees.
Now, brace up, and let your mother go away with a memory of four smiling
faces.”
This was a pretty big order, but the Maynard children were made of
pretty good stuff after all, and in response to their father’s request
they did show four smiling, though tearful faces, as Mrs. Maynard waved
a good-by from the carriage window. But as the carriage passed through
the gate and was lost to their sight, the four turned back to the house
with doleful countenances indeed.
Rosy Posy recovered first, and at an invitation from Nurse to come and
cut paper-dolls, she went off smiling in her usual happy fashion. Not so
the others.
Kitty threw herself on the sofa and burying her face in a pillow sobbed
as if her heart would break.
This nearly unnerved King, who, being a boy, was specially determined
not to cry.
“Let up, Kit,” he said, with a sort of tender gruffness in his tone. “If
you don’t you’ll have us all at it. I say, Mops, let’s play something.”
“Don’t feel like it,” said Marjorie, who was digging at her eyes with a
wet ball of a handkerchief.
It was Saturday, so they couldn’t go to school, and there really seemed
to be nothing to do.
But reaction is bound to come, and after a time, Kitty’s sobs grew less
frequent and less violent; King managed to keep his mouth up at the
corners; and Marjorie shook out her wet handkerchief and hung it over a
chair-back with some slight feeling of interest.
“I think,” Midget began, “that the nicest thing to do this morning would
be something that Mother would like to have us do. Something special, I
mean.”
“Such as what?” asked Kitty, between two of those choking after-sobs
that follow a hard crying-spell.
“I don’t know, exactly. Can’t you think of something, King? Maybe
something for Miss Larkin.”
“I’ll tell you,” said King; “let’s put flowers in her room! Mother would
like us to do that.”
“All right,” said Midget, but without enthusiasm; “only I meant
something bigger. Something that would take us all the morning. We could
put a bouquet of flowers up there in five minutes.”
“But I don’t mean just a bouquet,” explained King. “I mean a lot of
flowers—decorate it all up, you know.” Marjorie brightened, and Kitty
displayed a cordial interest.
“Wreaths and garlands,” went on King, drawing on his imagination, “and a
‘Welcome’ in big letters.”
“Fine!” cried Kitty, who loved to decorate; “and festoons and streamers
and flags.”
“All right, come on!” said Midget. “Let’s give her a rousing good
welcome. It’ll please her, and it will please Mother when we tell her.”
“But what shall we make our wreaths and garlands of?” asked Kitty, who
was always the first to see the practical side.
“That’s so,” said King, “there isn’t a flower in the garden.” As it was
only the second week in March, not many flowers could be expected to be
in bloom.
“Never mind,” said Marjorie, her ingenuity coming to the rescue,
“there’s lots of evergreen and laurel leaves to make wreaths and things,
and we can make paper flowers. Pink tissue paper roses are lovely.”
“So they are,” agreed Kitty. “’Deed we will have enough to do to fill up
the morning. You go and cut a lot of greens, King, and Mopsy and I will
begin on the flowers.”
“Haven’t any pink paper,” said Midget. “Let’s all go downtown and get
that first, and then we can get some ice cream soda at the same time.”
“That’s a go!” cried King. “Hurry up, girls.”
In ten minutes the three were into their hats and coats, and arm in arm
started for the village drug shop.
In this convenient store, they found pink paper and equally pink ice
cream soda. Having despatched the latter with just enough
procrastination to appreciate its exquisite flavor and texture, they
took their roll of tissue paper and hastened home.
Then Marjorie and Kitty went to work in earnest, and it is astonishing
how fast pink paper roses can grow under skilful little fingers. Their
method was a simple one. A strip of paper was cut, about twelve inches
long and two inches wide. This was folded in eight sections, and the
folded tops cut in one round scallop. Thus, the paper when unfolded,
showed eight large scallops. These were the rose petals, and were deftly
curled a trifle at the edges, by the use of an ivory paper-knife. Then
the strip was very loosely rolled round itself, the pretty petals
touched into place, the stem end pinched up tight and wound with a bit
of wire, which also formed a stem.
Midge and Kitty had made these before, and were adept in the art.
So when King came in, they had a good-sized waste-basket filled with
their flowers.
King brought not only evergreens, and laurel sprays, but some trailing
vines that had kept green through the winter’s frost.
“There!” he said, as he deposited his burden on the floor; “I guess that
will decorate Larky’s room—I mean the Honorable Miss Larkin’s
room—just about right. Jiminy, what a lot of flowers!”
“Yes, aren’t they fine!” agreed Marjorie. “We have enough now, Kit,
let’s take ’em up.”
Upstairs they went, to the pretty guest room that had been appointed for
Miss Larkin’s use, during her stay with the Maynards. Many hands make
light work, and soon the room was transformed.
From a dainty, well-appointed chamber, it changed to the appearance of a
holiday bazaar of some sort.
Garlands of greens, stuck full of pink roses, wreathed the mirrors and
pictures. Wreaths or nosegays were pinned to the lace curtains, tied to
the brass bedposts, and set around on bureau, tables, mantel, and
wherever a place could be found. The Maynard children had no notion of
moderation, and with them, to do anything at all, usually meant to
overdo it, unless restrained by older heads and hands.
“I think streamers are pretty,” said Marjorie. “Let’s tie our best
sashes on these big bouquets.”
“Oh, yes,” said Kitty, “and some hair-ribbons, too.”
A hasty visit to their bedroom resulted in many ribbons and sashes,
which were soon fluttering gracefully from wreaths, bedposts, and
chair-backs.
“We must have a ‘Welcome’ somewhere,” said King, as he stood, with his
hands in his pockets, admiring the results of their labors.
“There’s a great big ‘Welcome’ sign, up in the attic,” said Kitty; “the
one we had for a transparency when the Governor came, you know.”
“Oh, I know!” cried King. “That big white muslin thing, with black
letters. I’ll get it.”
He raced away to the attic, and soon came back with the big painted
sign.
As it was about ten feet long, it was nearly unmanageable, but at last
they managed to fasten it up above the mantel, and it surely gave
evidence of a hearty welcome to the coming guest.
“I found this in the attic, too,” said King, unrolling a smaller strip
of muslin.
This bore the legend “We Mourn Our Loss,” and had been used many years
before, beneath the portrait of a martyred President.
“I thought,” he explained, “that it seemed too bad to make such a
hullabaloo over Miss Larkin, and make no reference to Father and
Mother.”
“Oh, I think so, too,” cried Marjorie. “It will be lovely to put this up
in memory of them. Shall we drape it in black?”
“No, you goose!” said King. “They aren’t dead! We’ll put a little flag
at each corner, like a Bon Voyage thing, or whatever you call it.”
“Oh, yes; like the pillow Mother sent to Miss Barstow when she went to
Europe. That had a flag in each corner, and Bon Voyage right across it,
cattycorner. What does Bon Voyage mean, anyway?”
“It means ‘hope you have a good time,’” said Kitty; “and I’m sure we
hope Father and Mother will have a good time.”
“Yes, I know,” said Midget, “but what has that got to do with Miss
Larkin?”
“Oh, well, we may as well do our decorating all in one room,” said
sensible Kitty. “Come on, let’s hurry up and finish; I’m awful tired,
and hungry, too.”
“So’m I,” said both the others, and they finished up their decorating in
short order.
“Sarah,” called Marjorie, at last, to the good-natured and
long-suffering waitress, “won’t you please come and clear away this
mess; we’ve finished our work.”
“For goodness’ sake, Miss Marjorie!” exclaimed Sarah, as she saw the
guest room; “now, why did you do this? Your mother told me to put this
room tidy for the lady, and I did, and now you’ve gone and cluttered it
all up.”
“You’re mistaken, Sarah,” said King. “We’ve decorated it in honor of the
lady that’s coming. Now, you just take away the stuff on the floor, and
sweep up a bit, and straighten the chairs, and smooth over the bed, and
the room will look lovely.”
“And perhaps you’d better put on fresh pillow-shams,” added Marjorie;
“somehow those got all crumpled. And we broke the lampshade. Can’t you
get one out of Mother’s room to replace it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Sarah, half laughing, half grumbling; “of course I can
do the room all over. It needs a thorough cleaning after all this mess.”
“Well, thorough-clean it, then,” said Marjorie, patting Sarah’s arm.
“But don’t touch our decorations! They’re to assure the lady of our
welcome.”
“I’ll not touch ’em, Miss Marjorie; but any lady’d get the nightmare to
sleep in such a jungle as this.”
“It is like a jungle, isn’t it?” said King. “I didn’t think of that
before. Maybe Miss Larkin will think we mean she’s a wild beast.”
“No,” said Kitty, with her usual air of settling a question. “It’s
lovely, all of it. You just tidy up, Sarah, and it will be all right,
and Miss Larkin will adore it. Is luncheon ready?”
“Almost, Miss Kitty. It will be by when you’re ready yourselves.”
The children gave one more admiring glance at their decorations, and
then ran away to get ready for luncheon.
“What time is she coming?” asked Kitty, as she and Midge tied each
other’s hair-ribbons.
“I don’t know, exactly. About four, Mother thought. She told me to show
her to her room, and ask her if she’d like tea sent up.”
“Doesn’t it make you feel grown up to do things like that?” asked Kitty,
looking at her older sister with admiring eyes.
“Yes—sort of. But I forget it right away again, and feel
little-girlish. Come on, Kits, are you ready?”
Luncheon was great fun. Marjorie at one end of the table, and King at
the other, felt a wonderful sense of dignity and responsibility. Kitty
and Rosy seemed to them very young and childish.
“Will you have some cold beef, Marjorie,” said King, “or a little of the
omelet?”
“Both, thank you,” replied Midget, “and a lot of each.”
“Ho! that doesn’t sound like Mother,” said King, grinning.
“I don’t care,” said Marjorie. “Just because I sit in Mother’s place,
I’m not going to eat as little as she does! I’d starve to death.”
“All right, sister, you shall have all you want,” and King gave Sarah a
well-filled plate for Midget’s delectation.
“Isn’t it fun to be alone?” said Kitty, and then added hastily: “I don’t
mean without Mother and Father, I mean without Miss Larkin.”
“Yes,” agreed Marjorie. “I do feel glad that she didn’t come this
morning, and we can lunch alone. It’s sort of like a party.”
“I wish it was a party,” said Kitty, “’cause then we’d have ice cream.”
“P’raps we’ll have ice cream a lot, when Miss Larkin gets here,” said
Marjorie. “Mother left a letter for her, and it says for her to order
everything nice to eat.”
“Then I’m glad she’s coming,” declared Kitty, who loved good things to
eat.
After luncheon the hours dragged a little. The house seemed empty and
forlorn, and the children didn’t know exactly what to do.
“Why don’t you go over to see Delight?” Kitty asked of her sister; “and
then, I’ll go to see Dorothy.”
“I don’t feel like it,” answered Midget. “I feel all sort of lost, and I
don’t want Delight, or anybody else—except Mother.”
“Huh!” said King, “squealing already! Chuck it, Mops. Come on outdoors
and play tag.”
King’s suggestion proved a good one, for somehow a game of tag in the
cool, bracing, outdoor air did them all good, and when at last it was
time to dress for afternoon, and to receive Miss Larkin, it was a
smiling group of children who awaited the coming guest.