Part 27 (1/2)
”Not a bad idea--whenever I am tempted to be bad after this, I'll take a nap and throw the devil off the track that way.”
”My mother says it isn't nice to talk about the devil.” Katy looked so gravely disapproving that Marian had hard work to keep her face straight.
”Oh, excuse me--I'll be careful not to mention his Satanic majesty again. Well, Chicken Little, are you going to have a birthday party this year?”
”Not a really party, but Mother said I could have Katy and Gertie and Grace Dart come to tea. There's going to be a sure enough birthday cake with candles and my name and age in pink frosting--and we're going to have chocolate creams--and all the dolls.”
”I shall bring Violet--she's got a new dress and she's just had her hair glued on--I curled it on the curling iron,” said Gertie.
”I'm going to bring my n.i.g.g.e.r Dinah and you can play she helps wait on the table,” put in Katy.
”Dear me, is that the latest thing in dolldom, to have the guests wait on the table?” quizzed Marian.
”I guess it would be all right to play she did,” Jane responded with a grin.
”Your mother's birthday comes soon. What are you going to give her, Jane?”
”Yes, and Ernest's too, his is the twenty-second.”
”And Valentine's day comes the fourteenth--just the day after your birthday.”
”Yes, Father says I was intended for a valentine only I was mailed too soon. I was just wondering what I could give Mother, Marian,--and Ernest. I've only got sixteen cents. I don't think birthdays ought to come so near Christmas.”
”Sixteen cents isn't much for two presents, is it? We'll have to put our thinking caps on. Let me see. How would you like to make Mother a little tidy for her rocking chair? I think I have a piece of honey-comb canvas left that would be just about the right size--you might do a Greek border with rose-colored worsted. It's fast work. You could do it easily.”
”Oh, Marian, you do think of the nicest things!” and Chicken Little got up impulsively to give her a grateful hug.
”But Ernest will be harder--he wouldn't care for fancy work.”
”He wants a new base ball--an awfully hard one like Carol's.”
”Frank can get him that. I'll tell you, Chicken Little, I believe he'd like a nice strong bag for his marbles--it won't be long till marble time now. But, perhaps, we can think up something else.”
”I wisht you'd come to my tea party, Marian.”
”I'd be charmed to, and I'll bring my old doll, Seraphina. She is huge and hasn't any nose left and only one eye. Will she be welcome in this wounded state or had we better put her in a hospital?”
”Oh, Marian, will you?--I'd love to see her.”
”She's down in the bottom of a trunk, but I am sure she would be delighted to get out in the world again. What are you looking at with those big eyes of yours, Katy?”
”I was just thinking she must be awful old.”
”She is--frightfully--almost as old as I am. My aunt brought her to me from Paris when I was just seven. She was elegant then--all pink silk ruffles with a little wreath of forget-me-nots in her hair. I crowed over all the children I knew because she was so fine, but I must be getting home. Children dear, I wonder if your mothers would mind if you ran down to the postoffice to mail this letter for me. I want it to get off on the five o'clock train.”
Chicken Little's boasted luck seemed about to fail her entirely on her birthday morning. She got up late and was so excited over her little remembrances that she almost forgot to get ready for school. She ran as hard as she could, so hard she had a st.i.tch in her side, but the last child in the line was disappearing inside the school-house door, when she was still half a block away.
She knew what that meant. Miss Brown had a harsh rule for tardy pupils--they stayed one-half hour after school, rain or s.h.i.+ne. And to stay in a half hour on one's birthday with a party on foot was unthinkable. Why it would be most dark when she got home! And her mother--well, maybe her mother wouldn't say very much since it was her birthday, but Jane wasn't keen about hearing what she would say.
She dragged herself reluctantly up the stairs, taking an unnecessarily long time to hang up her wraps and it was fully five minutes past nine when she took her seat. Miss Brown looked severe.