Chapter VIII We Give a Reception
Everything pleasant comes to an end, even pleasant vacations, and when the golden-rods were bowing to the asters, like gallant knights to their ladyloves, and the red sumachs were hanging out the first flags of autumn, we girls had to think of school once more.
The books which had been closed for almost three months beckoned us again, and delightful as the Clover Leaf meetings had grown, we knew that for the next nine months we should hold them only on Saturdays, perhaps not always then.
“Girls,” said Linda Curtis, “what shall we do for a wind-up to the summer? Something which has never been done in Bloomdale. Something which will be remembered when we are grown up and have forgotten our girlish pranks?”
Linda’s suggestion was approved unanimously, but nobody could propose anything which everybody liked.
Finally Jeanie and Amy, who had been putting their heads together, and whispering until the Chair had to call them to order, showed by their smiling faces that they had a bright idea.
“Miss President,” said Jeanie, “if I may, I should like to make a motion.”
“Miss Cartwright has the floor,” said the President, gravely.
“I move that the Bloomdale Clover Leaf Club give a reception in the Academy to all the Bloomdale neighbors and friends, with a programme, and refreshments afterward.”
“Is the motion seconded?” inquired the President.
“I second the motion,” exclaimed Miss Amy Pierce, rapturously.
“It is moved and seconded that we give a reception at the Academy, with a programme and refreshments. Are there any remarks?”
I should think there were. Why, they flew about like snow-flakes in a hurricane.
“Why in the Academy?”
“Why not in somebody’s parlor?”
“What sort of a programme?”
“Tableaux would be splendid!”
“Not tableaux! Charades?”
“Why not have a little play? That would be best, and we could all act.”
“What sort of refreshments? A regular supper, or lemonade and cake, or cake and ice-cream?”
At last it was resolved to carry out the reception idea, and to have a little play in which Dot and Dimpsie could be brought in, also a very magnificent Maltese cat belonging to Patty Curtis, and Miss Muffet’s parrot. The cat, arrayed in a lace ruff, with a red ribbon, would be an imposing figure, and the parrot would look well as one of the properties. Miss Muffet herself, in some character, probably as a Yankee school-mistress, must be persuaded to appear.
Well, you may imagine what a flutter we were in! We trimmed the old Academy with ferns and running pine and great wreaths of golden-rod, while feathery clematis was looped and festooned over the windows and around the portraits of former teachers, which adorned the walls.
Our play was written for us by Mr. Robert Pierce, Amy’s brother, who goes to Harvard, and he brought in both our pets, and the cat and parrot, and had in ever so many hits which Bloomdale folks could enjoy, knowing all about them.
The only thing which interfered with my pleasure was that mother was not here, and I had expected her home. I nearly cried into the lemonade, and almost blistered the icing of the pound-cake with tears; but seeing grandmamma gaze at me with a whole exclamation point in her eyes, I gave myself a mental shake, and said, not aloud, but in my mind: “Don’t be a baby, Milly Van Doren! A big girl like you! Be good! There, now!”
But I was not the most unhappy girl when, just after my part in the play was over, I heard a little movement in the audience, and saw a stirring as of surprise at the other end of the room.
Who was that? A sweet face in a Quaker bonnet, a white kerchief folded primly over a gown of dove-colored satin, a pure plain dress, looking very distinguished, for all its simplicity, among the gay toilet of the “world’s people.”
Surely, no—yes, it was, it could be no one but mother!
I threaded my way through the crowded aisles, gentlemen and ladies opening a path for me, and before everybody I was clasped in her dear arms. And there was father smiling down at me, and saying, as mother told me, to be composed, for I was half crying, half laughing: “Of course she’ll be composed. I have always said thee could trust our little lass.”
I squeezed myself into a seat between the two darlings, forgetful that I was the President of the Clover Leaf Club; and there I sat till the play was over, when something happened that was not on the programme.
A tall shabby form advanced to the front of the room, and mounted the stage.
It was Jack Roper! We held our breath. What did this mean?
“I want, fellow-townsmen and ladies,” said Jack, with the utmost coolness, “to return thanks to the Clover Leaf young ladies for the good example they’ve been a settin’ our wives and darters. Them girls is trumps!”
Down sat Jack in a storm of applause. This speech, if not elegant, was at least sincere.
He was followed by a very different personage. No less a man than Judge Curtis arose and gave us a little address, after which Amy Pierce and Lois Partridge played a duet on the piano.
Then the refreshments were distributed. There was a merry time talking and laughing over the feast, and we all went home. Miss Muffet looked radiant, she had so many compliments, and Aunt Hetty, who appeared in her stiffest calico, was not backward in accepting some for herself. Though what she had done, except try my patience, it was puzzling to us to tell.
My precious mother had the very prettiest surprise of all for us when her trunks were opened. It is her way to make people happy, and she goes through the world like an angel.
For every girl in the club she had brought home a silver pin in the shape of a four-leaved clover. “Whether you keep up the club or not,” she said, “it will be a pretty souvenir of a very happy summer.”
I don’t know whether I have made mother’s way plain to all my readers, but I hope they see it is a way of taking pains, of being kind, of being honest and diligent, and never doing with one hand what ought to be done with both. If I learn to keep house in mother’s way I shall be perfectly satisfied.
Father says: “Thee certainly may, dear child! For my part, I trust my little lass.”