Kit of Greenacre Farm Part 11

"I think you ought to preside, Kit," Charity said as she arranged the tea table more handily before the corner couch. "It's your party, and you ought to pour."

"Takes too much concentration," Kit returned. "Anne'll help you. I want to have my mind perfectly clear to manage the thing. You see, Marcelle doesn't know a blessed thing about it yet, and there's no knowing how she'll take it. Wouldn't it be funny if she got proud and haughty, and marched away from our Founders' Tea?"

"I don't think you ought to spring it until after we've had refreshments.

Food has such a mellowing effect on human nature. It's all a question of tact, though. If I were you, I'd talk to them in an intimate sort of way instead of lingering too much on the historic value. Better straighten Malcolm, over yonder; he looks kind of topply."

Kit regarded the framed steel engraving of Malcolm Douglas almost fondly.

It had been taken from a history of early Wisconsin, together with some other founders fortunate enough to be included on the roll of honor, and had hung down in the Dean's room. Now it occupied a prominent spot specially cleared for it in the middle of the wall, and Kit had twined a long, double tendril of southern smilax around it, culled from the local florist's supply for any chance Delphi festivities.

Backed by Miss Daphne's approval and interest, Kit had called at several homes where lived the descendants of other founders, and the results were manifest. Mrs. Peter Bradbury had contributed two Indian blankets and a hunting-bag, besides an old pair of saddle bags used by her father, one of the early missionary bishops of the northwest, in his travels through the wilderness. Two fine timber wolf pelts lay on the floor, and of these Kit was specially proud. She had beguiled them from the treasure store of old Madame Giron, whose husband could still tell with fiery eyes and thrilling tone of how he had killed the animals not a quarter of a mile from the site of Hope College, in the old settler days.

From the cabinet in the Dean's room had come mostly records, old doc.u.ments carefully framed, and several letters written by the founders themselves.

"You know," Kit said, as she gave a last touch to her exhibit, "of course these are important, but I like the Indian and hunting things best. I wish I could run away with that double pair of buffalo horns that belonged to Dr. Gleason's granduncle or somebody. I like them better than anything."

A quick rap came on the door, and before Charity could even call "come in"

Peggy entered with her usual galaxy behind her, Amy, Norma, and a newcomer from Iowa, Henrietta Jinks, whom the girls had instantly dubbed "the Jinx," because of her infallible habit of everlastingly doing the inopportune thing.

"If it wasn't that her father was a congressman, she'd never get by with it," Amy had said, "but as it is, if you'll just remember that she's been reared on rhetoric and torch-light parades, you can understand that little abrupt way she has. I think it's rather interesting to be a 'Jinx,' it's so different, and the boys only have mascots. This way, it shows we have a fine, proud disregard for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Kit, my child, did you hear that? I'll be playing Ophelia before the New Year dawns."

"Tony Conyers sent word she'd be ready in five minutes," said Norma. "I think she's dressing up as something symbolical, and she's got a lot of the girls in there with her. Charity, I think this is a perfectly stupendous idea of yours."

"'Tisn't mine," retorted Charity, hurtling cus.h.i.+ons handily from one couch to another in order to balance the room. "It's Kit's. This is her party.

Her coming out party at Hope."

"Oh, are you the founder's granddaughter?" Amy inquired, her blue eyes opening widely.

"No, precious, I'm not," replied Kit, happily. "I wish this minute I could mount yon rostrum, Mid declaim the feats of my ancestors. They were pathfinders and Cavaliers, but I don't know of a single blessed founder among them. Peggy, don't sit on the almonds. They're right behind you in that gla.s.s dish."

The room filled up rapidly with members of the freshman cla.s.s, and Kit declared after she had been the rounds four times that she felt exactly like the lecturer in the curio hall in a museum, telling the history of the relics over and over again. n.o.body but Anne knew how anxious she became as the moments slipped by and no Marcelle appeared. It would never do to have a climax happen without the surprise of her presence to carry it off. The refreshments had all been served, and the little bronze dragon clock on top of the book shelves showed the hour of five, when Charity called:

"You'd better start in on your Founders' talk, Kit; we've only got about half an hour."

There was a baffled look in Kit's eyes, as she picked up the challenge and rose from the brown willow chair. Charity must know perfectly well how untimely it was to start to spring the surprise while there was a running chance of Marcelle appearing. Still there was a hush, and the girls faced her expectantly.

"As you all know," began Kit, "the old bronze tablet in the lower hall carries names on its roll of honor which not only uphold the glory of Hope College, but also of the entire town of Delphi, of the entire state, I may say, of Wisconsin."

"Kit," murmured Peggy, sotto voce, "if you start declaiming like that you'll have 'the Jinx' after your scalp. First thing we know, you'll begin, 'Ladies and fellow const.i.tuents.'"

Kit waited until the laugh had subsided, and Peggy had replaced the sh.e.l.l pins from her tumbled braids after a tussle with "the Jinx," who took all political allusions as personal affronts.

"There are few of us here to-day, if any," continued Kit, slowly, one eye watching the concrete walk across the campus from the nearest window, "who can boast of a Hope founder in her family."

"I can, almost," interrupted Antoinette, otherwise Tony; "my big sister Marie was engaged for a very little while to Bernard Giron. If she had only married him, we would have had a 'Founder' in the family."

"Tony," said Kit, severely, "I am dealing with facts, not prospects, and you ought not to reveal any family secrets, either. I say it is a great honor to be a direct descendant of a 'Founder,' and we have one in our cla.s.s. A girl, too modest to take advantage of her grandfather's record."

She paused impressively, but with a quickening gleam in her eyes, as there suddenly have in view a hurrying figure in gray sweater and dark crimson cap on the campus walk. It was Marcelle herself, late, but in time to create the desired sensation.

Kit drew a deep breath, and plunged back to her subject, considering exactly the time it would take for the belated guest to reach the study.

"Since all the girls here belong to this dormitory, it seems appropriate that the founder whose memory we honor should be Malcolm Douglas. His portrait hangs upon the wall, evidently taken from an old likeness." Oh, how she wished the home folks could hear her roll her phrases! "There is no more adventurous or thrilling career in the annals of historic Delphi than that of the ill.u.s.trious Scotchman. Making his way through the perils of the wilderness, he came from Quebec with a party of fur traders and pioneer explorers."

"Don't hit too far back, Kit," interrupted Peggy, alertly. "If he was a founder in '71, you can't have him trotting over wilderness trails with Marquette and Lasalle, you know."

"Nevertheless," responded Kit, ignoring the levity of her nearest neighbor, "he is one of the heroes of our Wisconsin pioneer times. He came here in his early twenties, and married Lucia, the daughter of Captain Peter Morton. Their daughter was Mary, and, girls, she was the mother of one of our cla.s.smates, the very same Mary who went through Hope and graduated with high honors. You'll find her initials carved in Number 10 across the hall, and her portrait--the only one I could find--is in this graduating group."

The girls all crowded forward to look at the group photograph which Kit held out to them, just as a knock came at the door. For one dramatic instant Kit held the k.n.o.b, her back against the door as she announced in almost a whisper:

"The granddaughter of Malcolm Douglas."

The girls leaned forward, eagerly, every eye fixed upon the door. As Kit said afterwards, laughingly to Anne:

"Goodness knows who they expected to see, but I almost felt as though I had promised them the excitement of a live mummy and then had sprung Marcelle. Oh, but wasn't she splendid, Anne? The way she stood the introduction and the shock of finding herself the guest of honor. As I looked at her, I thought to myself, you may be Douglas, and you may be Morton, fine old Scotch and English stock, but if it wasn't for the dash of debonair Beaubien in you too, you could never carry this off the way you are doing."

Marcelle was not the only person present who had to fall back on inherent caste for their manners of the moment, but Tony was the only one that gave an audible gasp. Even Peggy and Norma smiled, and greeted the Founder's granddaughter in the proper spirit.

She was dressed in white, just a plain kilted skirt and smock, but Kit gloried in the way she took her place beside Charity at the tea table, and parried the questions of the girls with laughing ease.

"Of course," she said, with the little slight accent she seemed to have caught from her father and old Grandmother Beaubien, "I thought every one in Delphi knew. For myself, I am proud of him, and of all my mother's people, but I am also proud of being a Beaubien. You girls do not know perhaps that some of my father's people helped to found Fort Dearborn, and they were very brave and courageous voyagers in the early days of New France."

Peggy really rose to the occasion remarkably, Kit thought. Probably the most zealously guarded members.h.i.+p in Hope's freshman cla.s.s was that of the Portia Club, and yet, before the tea was over, she had invited Marcelle to attend the next meeting and be proposed for members.h.i.+p.

"We're not going to try a whole play at first, just famous scenes, and I know you'd fit in somewhere and enjoy it. Don't you want to, Marcelle?"

Marcelle shrugged her shoulders, deprecatingly.

"I shall be glad to help always," she said, with simple dignity, "if you wish to make me one of you. We have an old copy of Shakespeare at home that was my mother's, and I have read much of it in the long winter evenings. I think," she added, whimsically, "that I would rather play parts like Shylock or Hamlet than the girl roles, and best of all, I should love dearly to play Prince Hal."

"What do you think of that?" Anne said on the way home. "The idea of her being interested in Shakespeare at all or knowing anything about it, after living all her life in that little sand dump. Kit, you certainly have discovered a flower that was born to blush unseen."

"It will take her out of her sh.e.l.l, anyway," Kit replied, happily. "And I do think the girls came up to the mark splendidly. Heaven knows how they are talking about us now, behind our backs, but they acted their parts n.o.bly when I swung that door open, and there stood, just Marcelle!"

CHAPTER XV

THE FAMILY ADVISES

No qualms of homesickness visited Kit the first two months after school opened. Not even New England could eclipse the glory of autumn when it swept in full splendor over this corner of the Lake States. Down east there was a sort of middle-aged relaxation to this season of the year. Kit always said it reminded her of the state of mind Cousin Roxy had reached, where one stood on the Delectable Mountains and could look both ways.

But here autumn came as a veritable gypsy. The stretches of forest that fringed the ravines rioted in color. The lakes seemed to take on the very deepest sapphire blue. No hush lay over the land as it did in the east, but there were wild sudden storm flurries, and as Kit expressed it, a feeling in the air as if there might be a regular circus of a cataclysm any minute.

Hardly a Sat.u.r.day pa.s.sed but what she was included in some motoring party.

The Dean never joined these, but Miss Daphne thoroughly enjoyed her new role of chaperon. Sometimes the run would be further north, along the route to Milwaukee. Other days they would dip into the beautiful wooded roads that cut through the ravines, leading over towards Lake Delevan. And once, towards the end of November, in the very last spurt of Indian Summer weather, they took a week-end tour up to Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls.

"I only wish," Rex said, "that we could come up here next spring when they have their big logging time. It's one of the greatest sights you ever saw, Kit. I have seen the logs jammed out there in the river until they looked like a giant's game of jackstraws. Maybe we could arrange a trip, don't you think so, mother?"