The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 10

novels. There was a good-hearted lady, so disastrously given to expressing enthusiasm by embracing anyone within her reach that the heroes and heroines of the evening fought shy of her, and Tom made her well-known tendency an excuse for withdrawing altogether and going out to the fence behind the building where he could overlook the festive scene and smoke a cigar surrept.i.tiously. Not least "among those present"

was the ubiquitous reporter for the _Courier_, biting his pencil and using abbreviations in his notes with such freedom that the list of gifts, when finally published, contained such startling entries as: _Eliza and her Germ Garden_, and _The Victorious Anthropology_.

"I felt as though I were in a dream half the time," sighed Polly, when the crowd had dwindled to "the immediate mourners" as Max put it, and these were sitting wearily at the messy little tables, dipping idle spoons into the melted cream that had been with difficulty saved for them. "I kept on smiling and explaining and telling people to go to Catherine for cards and to Bertha to leave their gifts, and half the time I didn't know what I was saying or who was talking to me. Bert came up once and asked me to tell him which door he came in at, and I tried to find out for him, before I tumbled--before I saw the point, I mean. I never was so exhausted in all my life."

"Poor Algernon," said Tom. "You're just beginning your work. Every one of those hundred and sixty-seven cards will be in to-morrow to draw out a book. You ought to keep open for a week every day."

"Three times a week, with evenings, will be enough," replied A.

Swinburne, librarian. "There's a big job on those books that came in to-night. How many were there finally, Bertha?"

"Ninety-six. About twenty are worth putting labels on," answered Bertha cheerfully. "I'm a little inclined to think that that part of our plan was a mistake."

"I don't believe it," said Dot. "There was one old duck who brought a German primer, and he strutted around as though he owned the place. I'm sure he'll use it constantly."

"He seemed to think he ought to have a card free, because he gave it,"

put in Catherine. "I remember him! He wasn't the only one, though. They all--or a lot of them--seemed to think they ought to be able to draw any number of books on one card, and they don't like the idea of fines at all. I don't envy you, Algernon!"

"We ought to have called ourselves the Looking For Trouble Club,"

groaned Archie. "We haven't had a decent Boat Club picnic since we got into this mess. And look at all this place to clean up to-morrow! I'm about dead with work, already. I don't know about the rest of you."

The rest had strength enough for a chorus of hoots and jeers at "His Laziness," who had adorned the scene of their labor for a few minutes now and then, but for the most part had stayed strictly away.

"I've saved your lives, anyway," declared Archie cheerfully, when their derision had spent itself. "And I'm going to again. I hired a lovely scrub-lady to come to-morrow and make this spot look s.h.i.+pshape--"

"O, Archie!" cried the girls, "you beautiful boy!"

"Don't interrupt," said the beautiful boy sternly. "I am going to vindicate myself. Polly Osgood, didn't that tennis game Friday morning save you from collapse? How about that little canoe jaunt on the quiet yesterday, Catherine? Bess needed a drive Thursday, and Winifred did more good to the public by singing to me all that hot evening than the rest of you did slaving away over some gooey job or other. Dorcas let me reward her Sunday-school kids by a hay-rack ride, and she went along to take care of us. Agnes and Bertha got interrupted on their way down here one morning, and let themselves be persuaded to take a country walk instead, to show me birds' nests for a course I'm not ever going to take next year. And as for Dot,--O, Dot was shamelessly ready to go off any old time with any old body. But you all would have been nervous wrecks by now without me. And you call me names, like an ungrateful populace!"

It was a mirth-provoking series of revelations. "Archie has shown himself a most artistic sly-boots," said Catherine. "I never had more delicious conscience pangs than I did on that canoe-ride."

"So it was with me," declared Polly. "And I never dared say anything sarcastic about the other girls not turning up every time, because I felt so guilty myself."

"So did I!" cried Bertha and Agnes together.

"Well, so didn't I!" exclaimed Dot. "I was perfectly free to say all the time that I didn't intend to spend my whole summer or even ten days of it working harder than I do winters. I move that Archie be given a vote of thanks for introducing the Rest Cure into the Boat Club, and also a vote of admiration for the beauty of his dissimulation."

"I second the motion," said Archie himself, "and amend it to include going home. Want any help in locking up, Al?"

"No, thanks," said Algernon, hearing for the first time a nickname that any fellow might have had applied to himself. "Good night, all of you.

I'll take good care of things, you can count on that."

As the rest drifted in pairs and threes toward their homes, a well-content young man set the reading-chairs in their places, put out the low-burning lamps, turned the key in the lock, and walked briskly away, happier than he had ever been.

Even so early, Catherine's inspiration had shown itself a true one.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A PARTY AT POLLY'S

"Where you goin', Algy?"

Algernon, half-way down the walk, turned at these words, high and clear, floating down from upper regions.

In the balcony on the second floor Elsmere, clad airily in white night-drawers, leaned pensively over the railing.

"To the party, you know. Go back to bed, Sonny."

"But the party is to Peter and Perdita's, over there,--" with a gesture across the street. "Why do you be goin' that way?" The fat little arm waved in an opposite direction.

"I'm going to get Catherine. Do go in, now, Elsmere. I'll tell you all about the party in the morning," and Algernon hastened down the street, bouncing more than usual in his effort to get out of reach of that penetrating little voice.

"Why," it called after him, "why? Doesn't Caffrine know the way to Peter and Perdita's house? What you goin' to get her _for_?"

The neighbors on their porches smiled, and Algernon reddened as he rushed along.

Elsmere, abandoned, still draped himself over the railing and watched his brother's rapid walk.

"Springs!" he murmured at last, as though he had solved a knotty problem. "Algy walks like a spring seat!"

Then with a lighted candle Elsmere proceeded to make some preparations for an evening of festivity. The party at the Osgoods' was so near that Peter had a.s.sured him the music for the porch dancing would reach him even more clearly in his balcony chamber than if he were a really invited guest and on the spot. Peter had further coached him in the method of preparing porches for dancing, and Elsmere had secreted a candle and matches early in the evening, waiting only till Algernon was safely away to apply them. His floor nicely waxed, he curled down in a corner of the balcony to watch the arriving guests, and unexpectedly fell asleep.

"Walk on your heels, why don't you?"

Algernon, escorting Catherine, made this suggestion as she picked her way across a narrow muddy crossing, her white party skirts gathered in one hand. Catherine, poising with difficulty on the toe of one foot, turned and looked at him.

"It just muddies my heels, and then my heels muddy my skirts. Of course, you boys with trousers--" then, toppling, she righted herself and leaped across the last puddle.

"Trousers," said Algernon, getting to her side again, "were worn in Abyssinia as early as--"

Catherine heaved a mighty sigh.

"It's like going out for a stroll with the _Century Book of Facts_ to walk with you, Algernon Swinburne," she declared suddenly. "Do you think in statistics party-nights, even? Haven't you any uninstructive thoughts for warm evenings?"

Algernon regarded her silently.

"Am I such a bore?" he asked quietly.

Catherine caught her breath. She recalled swiftly her father's having said: "If Algernon should once find out that he was a bore, it would probably cure him. He has a lot of sense." And here he was finding it out, on her hands, just because she had, for once, made her groaning comment on his conversation audibly instead of to herself!

It was a serious moment.

"Listen, Algernon," she said, feeling for words. "I wasn't very polite to say what I did, but I'm not going to take it back now. It's really wonderful how you know so much, and people who use the library are appreciating it. But you see, you've lived by yourself all these years, acc.u.mulating information, and when you get among people you do have a little way of handing it out to them whether they want it or not. It's as though Mr. Graham should take potatoes and onions to church and pa.s.s them around to the congregation! They might be very nice potatoes and onions! I know how it is, because until Hannah Eldred came and woke me up, I used to do nothing but read poetry and cook, and I know I quoted Shakespeare to the girls when they came to see me, and it made them nervous, so they didn't come often. Have you ever noticed how Polly does? She's always interested in what every one says, and she always 'catches on.' She doesn't try to run the conversation, while Dorcas--"

"Dorcas. .h.i.ts you over the head with a club, and then when you're stunned she sits down on you and talks to the others! Am I like her?"

Catherine laughed outright.