The Staying Guest

“Don’t be absurd, Lavinia,” said Miss Priscilla. “It is quite right that you should give a party to your young friends, and I think you will enjoy it quite as much as they do. It will be a very nice party; your Aunt Dorinda and I will provide a pretty supper, and the young people can stroll about the lawn, or, if the day is chilly, you can play at games in the house.”

“It doesn’t sound a bit nice,” said Ladybird; “but I suppose the other children will like it, and so I don’t mind. When shall we have it?”

“To-morrow is Saturday,” said Miss Priscilla, “and I think to-morrow afternoon from three to six will be a good time for it. You can go out in the morning and invite your friends, while we make the cakes and jellies.”

“All right,” said Ladybird, with an air of resignation. “Who shall I ask?”

“Oh, I don’t care,” said Miss Flint, who was already looking into her recipe-book; “ask any one you choose. But be sure to get eleven; I like to have just twelve at the table.”

“I’ll help you make out a list, dearie, if you want me to,” said Aunt Dorinda.

“No, thank you,” said Ladybird; “the list will be easy enough. I like Edith Fairchild and Bob Sheldon the best, and then I’ll ask the Smith girls and Tom Cooper, – it will be easy enough to get eleven, and they’ll be awfully glad to come.”

“That’s a good child,” said Aunt Dorinda, patting her head; “and if you’re undecided, give the preference to those who will enjoy it most.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird, a trifle absent-mindedly, for she was trying to make Cloppy stand on his head.

The next morning all of the Flint household, except Ladybird, were busily engaged in preparations for the party, and that light-hearted damsel started out in high spirits to deliver her invitations.

“It seems to me,” she said to herself as she went along, “that my aunts are very good people. I know it’s a trouble to them to have this party, and yet they do it just out of kindness to me, and kindness to these other children that I’m going to invite. I wish I had a kinder heart. Somehow I never think of doing good to people until somebody puts me up to it. But now I’ve got a chance, and I’m in the notion, and I’m just going to invite those that it will do the most good to. I believe I’ll ask Jim Blake; he’s the poorest boy in school, and he’s awful dirty, but I know he’d like to come, and I think that’s what aunty meant. Anyway, she said to invite those who would enjoy it most, and I know Jim would enjoy it like a house afire. I’ll go right to his house and ask him first.”

Arriving at the Blakes’ small and exceedingly unattractive residence, Ladybird entered and seated herself with her most conventional calling manner.

“I’d like to have your son Jim attend my party this afternoon, Mrs. Blake,” she said; and her hostess responded:

“Laws, miss, are you in earnest now? Does your aunts know you’re askin’ him?”

“I’m inviting any one I choose,” said Ladybird; “and I want Jim to come if he’ll enjoy it.”

“Oh, he’ll enjoy it tiptop, miss, and I’m terrible glad to have him go.”

“Then that’s all right,” said Ladybird, joyously. “And I must go now, as I have to invite the others.” But as she reached the door she turned, and added, with a smile that entirely cleared the words of any rude effect, “My aunts are very particular about people’s personal appearance.”

“Oh, never fear,” said Mrs. Blake, comprehendingly, “I’ll redd Jim up until nobody’ll know him.”

Ladybird went away thrilling with an exalted sense of having done a most meritorious act, and eager to let the good work go on.

“It seems to me,” she thought, “that people like Jim Blake will enjoy the party heaps more than the Smiths and Fairchilds, and I’m going to ask all the poor ones I know first, and then fill up with the others. Why, it says in the Bible, when ye make a feast to scoop in the halt and the blind and the maimed and the lamed; and that reminds me, Dick Harris is lame, and so is his grandfather, for that matter. I believe I’ll ask them both; Aunt Priscilla didn’t say I had to have only children. And Mr. Harris got lame in the war, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy it; he’s a veteran G. A. R., and I just know Aunt Priscilla will like him.”

The Harris gentlemen were delighted to accept; and Ladybird gracefully apologized for not inviting the other members of the family by saying, “I’d love to ask you all, but I can only have eleven, and there are so many who seem to need invitations.”

As Ladybird proceeded, her charity grew wider, and finally acknowledged no bounds either social or ethical.

She invited old Miss Leech, who had lost most of her physical and many of her mental faculties; and whose acceptance was unduly delayed because for a long time she could not make out what her excited visitor was driving at.

Next, Ladybird invited two firemen. This she did with mixed motives: partly because she happened to meet them, and their red shirts and shiny helmets attracted her color-loving eye, and partly because she had a vague impression that it was always wise to keep on good terms with firemen. But to her surprise, though evidently highly appreciating the invitation, they positively declined.

This experience moved Ladybird to confine her invitations to younger guests, and she succeeded in securing Sam Scott, an idiot boy, and the widow Taylor’s two small twins. The widow Taylor frankly announced that she would have to accompany the twins, as they were imps of mischief and would destroy everything in sight; but as she seemed so anxious to come, Ladybird concluded she was a most desirable guest.

The Tuckermans, a family of ten, were all clamorous to come, but Ladybird was obliged to select two, as that made her number ten, and she was determined to invite Stella Russell.

Her errands all accomplished, she went home with a light heart, and found her aunts just putting the finishing touches to a daintily set table.

Although buoyed up during the morning by a firm conviction that she was following out her aunts’ wishes in spirit, if not in letter, the incongruity between the pretty table and the forlorn-looking specimens of humanity she had invited to sit at it suddenly came home to her, and she began to doubt whether she had acted wisely after all. So grave was this doubt that she could not bring herself to tell her aunts what she had done.

“Did you invite eleven?” asked Miss Priscilla, who was placing the chairs which Martha brought from other rooms.

“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird; “and Stella Russell is one of them.”

“Very well,” said Miss Flint; “she seems somewhat old for your party, but she can help entertain the children. Now we will eat our luncheon at the side-table, for I don’t want this one disturbed, and then after that you can dress for the party. You may wear your white cashmere frock with red ribbons, and see that your hair is smooth and tidy. I want you to look as neat as any of your guests.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird, with a growing conviction that her aunts would not care to practise what they preached, so radically as she had arranged.

“Aunt Priscilla,” she said at luncheon, “perhaps you won’t like some of the people I have invited; but you know you told me to invite those who would enjoy it most.”

“For the land’s sake, Ladybird, what have you been doing now? If you’ve done anything ridiculous, you may as well out with it first as last.”

Like a flash, Ladybird realized that what she had done was ridiculous. Right it might be, charitable it might be, even according to Scripture it might be, but none the less it certainly was ridiculous.

“What is it, dearie?” said Aunt Dorinda, noticing Ladybird’s dismayed countenance. “Whom have you invited?”

“I asked Jim Blake,” said Ladybird, thinking it wise to begin with the least objectionable one.

“Jim Blake!” exclaimed Miss Priscilla. “Why, Lavinia Lovell, whatever possessed you to ask that ragamuffin! I shall send him home as soon as he appears.”

“Why, Aunt Priscilla, he’s perfectly crazy to come, and you said to ask those who would enjoy it most.”

Miss Flint looked utterly exasperated.

“Of course I meant within the bounds of decent society,” she said; “I didn’t suppose you intended to disgrace yourself and your relatives and your home! But never mind now. Go to your room and get dressed, and I will attend to Jim Blake when he arrives.”

“But, aunty – ”

“Not a word more. Do as I told you. I am busy.”

Ladybird went up-stairs feeling crushed and despondent; but when she began to array herself in the white cashmere with red ribbons, which was her favorite frock, the humor of the situation appealed to her. What her aunt would do when the unwelcome guests arrived she did not know; but, on the other hand, there was no way to avert the issue, and so there was nothing to be done but to await developments.

“And anyway,” she said to herself, “I haven’t done anything wrong; I’ve done just what the Bible says, even if it is ridiculous.”

CHAPTER XIII

A RIDICULOUS PARTY

Stella came early, and Ladybird was tempted to confide in her, and perhaps ask her to enlighten Aunt Priscilla.

But the child’s sense of the dramatic was too strong for this, and notwithstanding her own precarious position, she preferred to wait and let the whole remarkable situation burst unheralded upon her unsuspecting aunts.

And it proved to be worth while; for the expression on Miss Priscilla Flint’s patrician countenance as she saw a motley crowd coming in at her front gate was never forgotten either by Ladybird or Stella.

The guests had been bidden to come at three o’clock, and as they obeyed with scrupulous promptness, the greater part of the party arrived all at once. As they came up the path, Ladybird grasped the situation with both hands, and turning to her Aunt Priscilla, said:

“This is my party, aunty, that is coming in, and I hope they will like you. I did as you told me: I invited those who would enjoy it most, and I also followed the Bible command, ‘If you must make a feast, make it for the poor, and the halt, and the maimed, and the blind’; and if you can find anybody poorer or maimeder or halter than these people, I don’t know where they are. I am now going to open the front door and admit my guests, and I expect them to receive the welcome of Primrose Hall; and for goodness’ sake, aunty, brace up!”

The last admonition was by no means unnecessary, for Miss Flint certainly looked as if she were about to fall in a faint.

“Did you know of this?” she demanded, turning to Stella, who stood by, uncertain whether to laugh or sympathize.

“No,” said the girl; “I knew nothing of it, and I don’t understand it yet; but I think, Miss Flint, you will be glad afterward, if you rise to the occasion and show to these friends of Ladybird’s, whoever they may be, the hospitality for which Primrose Hall is so justly famous.”

Now Primrose Hall was not famous for its hospitality; indeed, the reverse was nearer the truth. But Stella’s remark touched the old lady’s pride, and she answered:

“Hospitality is all very well, but it does not mean inviting a parcel of paupers to come in and make themselves at home in one’s house.”

“No,” said Stella, soothingly; “but since Ladybird has asked these people, and apparently from good and honest motives, is it not your duty to uphold your niece, at least before strangers?”

“No, it is not!” said Miss Priscilla, angrily. “My niece can bear the consequences of her own rash act. I’m going to order those people out of my house at once! Where is Dorinda? Does she know of this outrage?”

Just then Miss Dorinda appeared from the dining-room. She was flushed, but smiling, and her face wore a satisfied expression which betokened that all was well in the commissariat department.

Her smile faded as she caught sight of Miss Priscilla’s face; but before that irate lady could say a word, Ladybird came in from the front hall, marshaling her guests in a decorous line to be presented.

The widow Taylor came first, and she held a twin on either arm. The Taylor children were about a year old and of strenuous disposition.

Ladybird’s eyes were dancing with excitement, but with a demure politeness that had in it a charming touch of gentle courtesy she introduced Mrs. Taylor to her aunts.

The widow was of the affably helpless type, and encumbered as she was with fidgety impedimenta, found herself unable to offer the hand of fellowship.

“I’m glad to meet you,” she said, earnestly looking the Misses Flint in their stony faces; “and if you’ll just hold these children a minute, I’ll shake hands, and then I’ll take my bonnet off, for this long veil is dreadfully in the way, and the babies do pull at it so!”

While Mrs. Taylor talked she distributed her offspring impartially between her two hostesses, and as the visitor’s movements were far quicker than the Flint ladies’ wits, Miss Priscilla and Miss Dorinda each found herself with a fat, roly-poly baby securely seated in the angle of her thin, stiff old left arm.

It may have been that some latent chord was touched in the hearts of the good ladies, or it may have been that their muscles were actually paralyzed with amazement, but at any rate they did not let the babies drop to the floor, as Ladybird confidently expected they would.

Having shaken hands politely, Mrs. Taylor proceeded to take off her bonnet, talking all the while in a casually conversational manner.

“Nice and neat, isn’t it?” she said, viewing with satisfaction the tiny bonnet which only served as a starting-point for the long black crape veil and a resting-place for the full white crape ruche. “I don’t often get a chance to wear it; but I’m so fond of it; it’s my greatest consolation since Mr. Taylor died. I call it my cloud with the silver lining.”

Stella took the precious bonnet from Mrs. Taylor’s hands, promising to put it safely away, and by that time Ladybird was presenting the elder Mr. Harris.

Though the old soldier was disabled and poor, he was a courtly gentleman of the old school and greeted the ladies with a quiet comprehension of his own dignity and theirs. Moreover, Richard Harris had been a friend of the Flint ladies in their youth, and though circumstances had pushed them far apart, a few slender threads of memory still held.

Ignoring their squirming left-armfuls, Major Harris shook hands with the Primrose ladies, and then, with the aid of his crutches, limped away.

It seemed a pathetic coincidence that his grandson Dick, who followed him, should also be on crutches, especially as his lameness lacked the patriotic glory of his grandfather’s.

Dick Harris was frankly delighted with the whole occasion, and did not hesitate to say so. He shook hands vigorously with the Misses Flint, and his face beamed as he expressed his gratitude for their invitation.

“But you ladies oughtn’t to be holdin’ them heavy kids,” he said. “I wish I could take ’em, but I can’t. Here, Jim Blake and Tom Tuckerman, you take these infants away from the ladies, so’s they can shake hands decent.”

Apparently the lame boy’s word was law, for the two boys he had called, though looking a little embarrassed, darted up and secured the twins with an awkward but efficacious clutch.

Miss Leech and Sam Scott were then presented together.

Ladybird didn’t do this for the logical reason that two half-witted people ought to count as one, but because she was impatient to get the introductions over with and begin the party.

Miss Leech wandered a little, confused the ladies’ names, and asked Miss Priscilla if she had paid off her mortgage yet. Sam Scott wandered a great deal, and grasping Miss Priscilla’s hand, shook it up and down continuously, while he babbled, “Beautiful day, beautiful day, beautiful, beautiful day, beautiful day, beautiful – ”

He was still expressing his opinion of the weather when Stella led him away and seated him in a corner with a picture-book to look at.

By this time Miss Priscilla had reached that state of mind which can only be described as the obstupefaction of the tumultuous. Her brain was benumbed by rapid and successive emotions, and as the climax of each had proved absurdly inadequate to the situation, Miss Priscilla was perforce in a condition of helpless docility, and Ladybird recognized this, and was not slow to take advantage of it.

Realizing that her aunt had interests, or at least memory, in common with Major Harris, she contrived to establish the two on a comfortable old sofa, where, despite the differences of the present, they were soon lost in the past.

Then Ladybird, with her natural talent for generalship, but with a tact and ability really beyond her years, arranged her other guests to the happy satisfaction of each.

Miss Dorinda found herself entertaining, or rather being entertained by, Mrs. Taylor, and each of these ladies held one of the romping twins, and actually seemed to enjoy it.

Miss Leech required no entertaining save to be allowed to wander about at will, touching with timid, delicate fingers the ornaments or curios about the room, and making happy, though inarticulate, comments upon them.

Then Ladybird and Stella devoted themselves to the amusement of the rest of the guests, who were all children and easily pleased by playing games or listening to Stella while she sang funny songs to her banjo accompaniment.

During one of these songs, Ladybird slipped out to the kitchen in search of Martha and Bridget, who were as yet unacquainted with the character of the Primrose Hall guests.

“I expect they’ll raise Cain,” she said to herself; “but I feel like Alexander to-day, and I’d just as soon conquer a few more worlds as not.

“Martha,” she began in a conciliatory tone, though determination lurked beneath her eyelashes, “the people who have come to my party are not the ones I expected to invite at first. They’re – they’re different.”

“Yes, miss,” said Martha, impassively.

“And two of them are lame, Martha, and two of them are babies, and two of them are not quite right in their heads.”

“Luny, miss?”

“Well, yes; I think you might call it that,” said Ladybird, gravely considering the case. Then after a pause she added, “And Martha, we’ll have to fix high chairs for the babies; put cushions in the chairs, you know, or dictionaries, or something.”

“Did your aunts invite these people, miss?” said Martha, suspecting, more from Ladybird’s manner than her words, that there was something toward.

“I invited them,” said Ladybird, with one of her sudden, but often useful, accessions of dignity, “and my aunts are at present entertaining them. You’ll see about the high chairs, won’t you Martha?”

In reality, Ladybird’s strong friend and ally, Martha, was always vanquished by the child’s dazzling smile, and she answered heartily, “Indeed I will, miss; you’ll find everything in the dining-room all right.”

Reassured, Ladybird went back to the parlor, to find her party still going on beautifully. Stella’s graceful tact and ready ingenuity were the best assistance Ladybird could have had, and the child gave a sigh of relief as she thought to herself she had certainly succeeded in inviting the ones who would enjoy it the most.

At five o’clock supper was served. Although the technical details of the table proved a trying ordeal to most of the guests (indeed, only the half-witted ones were wholly at ease), yet the delicious viands, and the kind-hearted dispensers of them, went far toward establishing a general harmony.

The guests took their leave punctually at six o’clock, as they had been invited to do, and Miss Priscilla’s parting words to each evinced a mental attitude entirely satisfactory to Ladybird.

“Though I wish, Lavinia,” she said much later, after they had discussed the affair in its every particular – “I do wish that when you are about to cut up these fearfully unexpected performances of yours you would warn us beforehand.”

“I will, aunty,” said Ladybird, with a most lamb-like docility of manner, “if you’ll promise to agree to them as amiably beforehand as you do afterward.”

CHAPTER XIV

SOME LETTERS

As the weeks and months went on, life at Primrose Hall adjusted itself to the new conditions made necessary by the addition of a child and a dog to its hitherto unrippled routine.

Miss Priscilla lived with her usual energy; Miss Dorinda existed a little more calmly, and Ladybird lived and moved and had her excited being with all sorts of variations, from grave to gay, from lively to severe, ad libitum.

The winter passed much in its usual way, and after that the spring came, laughing. April tumbled into May, and May danced into June, bringing ecstasy to one little heart, for with late June days came the summer vacation from school.

“My aunties,” said Ladybird, looking up from a lesson she was studying, “who is the governor of this State?”

“Hyde,” replied her Aunt Priscilla. “Governor Horace E. Hyde.”

“Is he a nice man?” asked Ladybird, drumming on the table with both hands, and on the floor with both feet.

“Do stop that fearful noise, Lavinia. Yes, he is a fine, capable governor, and a true gentleman. Why?”

“Are you studying your history lesson, dear?” asked Aunt Dorinda. “Is it about the governor?”

“I’m studying my history lesson, but it isn’t about the governor,” answered Ladybird, truthfully. “I only asked because I wanted to know.”

“That is right, Lavinia,” said Miss Priscilla, approvingly. “It is wise to inquire often concerning such matters of general information; by such means one may acquire much valuable knowledge.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird. “Where is his office?”

“Whose, the governor’s? Oh, in the State House, I suppose, though he would doubtless have a private office at home.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird.

That same afternoon Ladybird collected some apples and cookies, and with a pad of paper and a pencil in her hand, and Cloppy hanging over her arm, she remarked that she was going down to the orchard, and went.

“You see, Cloppy,” she said as they walked along, “we’ve just got to help Stella, – my pretty Stella; she has no one to help her but you and me. She’s a damsel in distress, and we’re a brave knight. Of course we can’t fight for her with spears and lancets; but we can do better than that. The pen is mightier than the sword, and, Cloppy, I’ve got the very elegantest scheme. I’m going to write to the governor – the governor of the State, you know. He can do anything, and if I write him a nice letter, I’m sure he’ll send a duke, or a belted earl, or something that’s nicer than Charley Hayes, anyway. But oh, Cloppy-dog, how I do hate to write a letter! I can’t write very good, and I can’t spell very good, and I’m scared to death of the governor. You know he’s an awful big man, Cloppy, a great man, with a white wig and a cocked hat; but I’m going to do it, and I won’t tell my aunties, because I’m ’most sure they wouldn’t let me. But I must do something to rescue my beautiful Stella from dire dismay.”

Ladybird climbed one of her favorite apple-trees, settled Cloppy comfortably in her lap, and placing her paper pad on him as on a desk, prepared to write. A puckered brow was for a long time the only outward and visible sign of her inward and spiritual resolve to help her friend.

“Oh,” she said at last, “it is harder even than I thought it would be; but I’ll do it for my Stella.”

“Of course,” she thought, “‘Dear Mr. Governor’ must be the way to begin it, because there isn’t any other way.”

After writing the three words, she paused again, trying to remember what her language lessons had taught her. “I only remember one rule,” she said to herself, talking aloud, as she was in the habit of doing, “and that is: ‘Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.’ But goodness me! if I can’t begin a sentence, it doesn’t make much difference what I use to end it with; does it, Clops?”

She poked the dog with her pencil, to which he responded by a series of wriggles.

“Do keep still, Cloppy, or I’ll never get my letter done. Now let me see. I think another rule was something like, ‘If you have a story to tell, state it clearly, and in as few words as you can’t get along without.’ Now I’m not going to tell any story; it’s the solemn truth; but I suppose the rule’s the same for that.”

After long and hard work, and much scratching out and putting in again, Ladybird succeeded in producing the following epistle: