CHAPTER XII.
THE BALL.
I can't fancy that the time will ever come when I shall be too jaded tobe thrilled at the mere mention of a ball. On that Thanksgiving eveningit seems to me I had every thrill that can come to a girl. I had been tobut few dances--the one at the Country Club the winter before and thehop at Willoughby were the only real ones, and this grown-up ball withthe lights and music and the handsomely gowned women and dapper men mademe right dizzy with excitement. The twins took a ball as rather a matterof course, having been dancing around with their young father ever sincethey could toddle, but Annie's eyes were sparkling with joy and MaryFlannagan, who was very bunchy in "starch paper blue" taffeta, the verystiff kind with many gathers around her waist, was jumping up and down,keeping time to the music.
Mary, with all her bunchiness, was an excellent dancer and as light onher feet as a gas balloon, (if a gas balloon could have feet). Sometimesher voluminous skirts had quite the appearance of a balloon and seemedto buoy her up. Mary was so frank and honest and gay that every one hadto like her, and, strange to say, boys, who as a rule are quite snobbishabout appearances and insist on a certain amount of beauty or style inthe girls they go with, all liked Mary and she never lacked for apartner at a dance. She was so amusing and witty that they lost sight ofher freckled face and scrambled red hair. Mary had good hard commonsense, too, and such a level head that we were very apt to ask heradvice on every subject in spite of the fact that she was many monthsyounger than any of us.
A cross-eyed cow would have had a good time at that Thanksgiving ball.There were so many stags and all of them seemed so eager to dance thatthe girls were really overworked. Wink and Harvie introduced manyUniversity of Virginia men to us and we had the honour of dancing withevery member of the football team who was able to hobble. George Massie,poor Sleepy, who had been so wide awake on the gridiron and sounconscious of himself, in the ball room was overcome with shyness. Hewas a very good dancer if he did break through a crowd with somewhat themanner of a centre rush. He danced with Annie Pore wherever he could getto her and when some eager swain tried to break in he would seize her inhis mighty grasp and bear her away with about the same ease he would afootball. If opponents went down under and before him, why then nexttime they would know better than get in his way.
Annie looked very lovely. The faithful white crepe de chine had beencleaned and was still doing its duty. I heard many persons ask who shewas and especially eager did the public seem to establish her identitywhen the great and only Hiram G. Parker singled her out for hisattentions.
"Does she belong in Richmond?"
"She is sure to be a next year's belle with this start she is gettingwith Hiram G."
"I can't see what he sees in her. She has no style to speak of and thatdress is plainly last year's model," this from a lady whose daughter waswhat put in my mind the remark I just made about cross-eyed cows. Youfelt she was led out to dance only because of the superfluity of males."Now that Miss Binks from Newport News," continued the mystified lady,"that girl has some style and you can see why Hiram G. took a fancy toher. Of course those Binkses are common as pig tracks but the mother iswell connected and they do say that old Binks has made money hand overfist. Mrs. Garnett met her at Willoughby and asked her up to visit her.You may be sure she is rich because we know she has no claim to being anaristocrat. Park Garnett demands either blood or money."
All of this I overheard between dances. I was standing on the edge ofthe crowd with Wink White with whom I had been laboriously dancing. Inever could dance with Wink; we never seemed to be able to get in step.I knew it was his fault and he thought it was mine. He would persist,however, in asking me to dance. The conversation of the chaperones wasrather embarrassing to both of us as Mabel was Wink's cousin, his familybeing the good connection that Mrs. Binks could boast of, and Mrs.Garnett was my cousin. We were forced, though, to hear more as we werewedged in near them for a few moments.
"They do say that Jeffry Tucker is paying Miss Binks a lot of attention.I saw her in his car at the game to-day and my daughter tells me thatthe girl is begigged about him. She actually broke a partial engagementwith Hiram G. Parker to go somewhere with Mr. Tucker last week."
"Well, well! She looks fit to cope with those Heavenly Twins!"
"Oh! They aren't so bad now. They do say they are toned down a lot.School has been good for them."
"They never were to say bad--just wild and harum-scarum. I'd hate tothink Jeffry Tucker would give his girls such a young stepmother. Theyneed some middle-aged person."
"Yes, but poor Jeffry! Can't you see him tied to some middle-agedperson? He is too young a man to marry for his children's sake."
"Well, he's too old a man to marry a girl right out of school and expecthis daughters to respect her."
I was certainly glad to start dancing again even with the four-footedWink. It is a strange thing what makes a good dancer. Some of the mostawkward-looking persons dance beautifully and, vice versa, some verygraceful ones are as stiff as pokers on the ballroom floor. Now Wink wasa very well set up young man, tall, broad shouldered, with an erectcarriage, almost soldierly in his bearing. It is all right to walk likea soldier but to dance the way a soldier walks is not so exemplary. Winkalways had a kind of "Present arms! March!" manner and a girl does notlike to be held and carried around like a musket.
Dee declared she thought Wink was a good dancer and she could make outfinely with him, and thank goodness, Wink had found this out and brokein on Dee more than he did on me. I liked to talk to him; he was a verybright, agreeable young man with original ideas and lots of ambition. Ifonly his ambition had not directed his attentions to me! I could not getover a certain embarrassment with him occasioned by the ridiculousproposal he had made me while we were at Willoughby. He had said to methen that he did not know how much he loved me until he saw me with myhair done up like a grown-up, and I had joked and told him that I couldnot judge of my feelings for him until he grew a moustache. He hadimmediately left off shaving his upper lip and now, to my confusion,every time I looked at him there bristled a very formidable moustache.
Wink was very good looking, with nice blue eyes and a straight nose. Idon't know why it seemed such a huge jest for him to be trying to makelove to me. Lots of girls my age had devoted lovers, at least accordingto their accounts they did. I was almost seventeen and it would berather fun, I thought, to encourage him and even have a ring to put veryconspicuously on my left hand on the engagement finger, but when Ithought of his "lollapalussing" ways that night on the piazza atWilloughby I just knew I could not stand it.
"Lollapalussing" was a Tweedles word and meant sentimental spooning anda hand-holding tendency. We used that word at Gresham to describe thegirls who have a leaning, clinging-vine way of flopping on you. Ourquintette was very much opposed to lollapalussers, male or female. Ifancy when you are very much in love that lollapalussing is not so bad,but then I wasn't at all in love, certainly not with Wink.
Father had taken a great fancy to Wink and the attraction seemed mutual.They talked together a great deal, and even at the ball when the youngman was not dancing with either Dee or me, he would seek out Father, whowas looking on at the dancing with great interest, and the twoevidently found much to converse about.
"Page," said Father, coming up to me as I was standing for a moment withMr. Tucker, after a most glorious dance in which not once had we missedstep or bumped into any one, "I have asked Mr. White down to Bracken fora visit during the Christmas holidays. I want him to see the country,"putting his hand affectionately on Wink's shoulder. "He is thinking ofsettling in the country after he gets his M.D., and has some hospitalpractice, and I am looking out for some one to throw my mantle on, as itwere."
"Oh--ye--that would be fine," I stammered, and I hate myself yet forblushing like a fool rose. Zebedee saw it and he looked so sad, justexactly as he had the winter before when Mr. Reginald Kent asked Dum fora lock of her hair. I did wish I could make him understand that
it madenot a whip stitch of difference to me where Wink White settled. That Iwas nothing but a little girl and did not care a bit for beaux, except,of course, for dancing partners, and maybe a candy beau or two. Everygirl wants that kind. But as for serious, young, would-be doctorsgrowing moustaches and coming to settle in our end of the county--itmade me tired. I did not know how to let my kind friend know it did,though, and as just then the chrysanthemum-headed giant from Carolina,the one I had seen weeping on the field after the game, came up to claima dance, I had to leave. A moment afterwards I had the doubtful pleasureof seeing Zebedee engaged in the gyrations of some new fangled dancewith the beaming Mabel Binks in his arms.
Mabel was certainly looking handsome. "I'll give it to her," as MammySusan says when she admits something pleasant about any one for whom shehas no regard. She was dressed in a flame-coloured chiffon that set offher fiery beauty which was accentuated by the many diamonds, rather toomany for a young girl, but I think it is usually the tendency of thosewho have no diamonds to wear to think that the ones who do have themwear too many. Needless to say that I have no diamonds to wear.
"Isn't she the limit?" hissed Dum, as we stopped dancing near each otherand Zebedee and his partner kept on for a moment after the music hadstopped. "I call it lollapalussy to dance after the band quits."
"She is looking mighty handsome, don't you think?"
"Handsome! She looks oochy koochy to me! Too like the Midway to suit mytaste."
Well, we had certainly had a wonderful time and I was not going to letanything ruin it for me. Stephen White could grow a moustache as big asa hedge and come and settle all over the county if he wanted to, and Mr.Jeffry Tucker could dance with a loud-mouthed girl in flame-colouredchiffon until he scorched himself if he wanted to. I had been to a balland been something of a belle and now I was tired and sleepy and wantedto get to bed and talk over things with the girls,--I did wish thoughthat I had not blushed like a fool rose just at the wrong time and thatZebedee had not seen me.