Happy House Part 19

Peter, crestfallen at her sudden flight, found it, however. He smiled, whimsically, as he held it in the palm of his hand.

"Nice little kid," he said, as he had said once before, then he put the rose carefully into his pocket.

CHAPTER XVII

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 succ.u.mbed to the drowsy sounds of the summer air.

Nonie had been tiptoeing back and forth across the gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sionately, tenderly. She had hidden sc.r.a.ps 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 pa.s.sionate 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 G.o.dmother, 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 ma.n.u.script, 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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, d.i.c.k 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 gra.s.s, 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.