VI.
THE GARDEN TEA.
THERE was a gnarled old pear-tree of great age and size that grew nearBetty Leicester's east window. By leaning out a little she could touchthe nearest bough. Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary said that it was a mostbeautiful thing to see it in bloom in the spring; and the family catswere fond of climbing up and leaping across to the window-sill, whilethere were usually some birds perching in it when the coast was clear ofpussies.
One day Betty was looking over from Mary Beck's and saw that the eastwindow and the pear-tree branch were in plain sight; so the two girlsinvented a system of signals: one white handkerchief meant _come over_,and two meant _no_, but a single one in answer was for _yes_. A yellowhandkerchief on the bough proposed a walk; and so the code went on, andwas found capable of imparting much secret information. Sometimes theexchange of these signals took a far longer time than it did to runacross from house to house, and at any rate in the first fortnight Maryand Betty spent the greater part of their waking hours together. Stillthe signal service, as they proudly called it, was of great use.
One morning, when Mary had been summoned, Betty came rushing to meether.
"Aunt Barbara is going to let me have a tea-party. What do you think ofthat?" she cried.
Mary Beck looked pleased, and then a doubting look crept over her face.
"I don't know any of the boys and girls very well except you," Bettyexplained, "and Aunt Barbara likes the idea of having them come. AuntMary thinks that she can't come down, for the excitement would be toomuch for her, but I am going to tease her again as soon as I have time.It is to be a summer-house tea at six o'clock; it is lovely in thegarden then. Just as soon as I have helped Serena a little longer, youand I will go to invite everybody. Serena is letting me beat eggs."
It was a great astonishment that Betty should take the serious occasionso lightly. Mary Beck would have planned it at least a week beforehand,and have worried and worked and been in despair; but here was Betty asgay as possible, and as for Aunt Barbara and Serena and Letty, they weregay too. It was entirely mysterious.
"I have sent word by Jonathan to the Picknell girls; he had an errand onthat road. They looked so old and scared in church last Sunday that Ikept thinking that they ought to have a good time. They don't come in tothe village much, do they?" inquired Betty with great interest.
"Hardly ever, except Sundays," answered Mary Beck. "They turn red if youonly look at them, but they are always talking together when they go by.One of them can draw beautifully. Oh, of course I go to school withthem, but I don't know them very well."
"I hope they'll come, don't you?" said Betty, whisking away at the eggs."I don't know when I've ever been where I could have a little party. Ican have two or three girls to luncheon or tea almost any time,especially in London, but that's different. Who else now, Becky? Let'ssee if we choose the same ones."
"Mary and Julia Picknell, and Mary and Ellen Grant, and Lizzie French,and George Max, and Frank Crane, and my cousin Jim Beck,--Dan's toolittle. They would be eight, and you and I make ten--oh, that's toomany!"
"Dear me, no!" said Betty lightly. "I thought of the Fosters, too"--
"We don't have much to do with the Fosters," said Mary Beck. "I don'tsee why that Nelly Foster started up and came to see you. I never goinside her house now. Everybody despises her father"--
"I think that Nelly is a dear-looking girl," insisted Betty. "I like herever so much."
"They acted so stuck-up after Mr. Foster was put in jail," Mary went on."People pitied them at first and were carrying about a subscription-paper,but Mrs. Foster wouldn't take anything, and said that they were going tosupport themselves. People don't like Mrs. Foster very well."
"Aunt Barbara respects her very much. She says that few women wouldshow the courage she has shown. Perhaps she hasn't a nice way ofspeaking, but Aunt Barbara said that I must ask Harry and Nelly, when wewere talking about to-night." Betty could not help a tone of triumph;she and Becky had fought a little about the Fosters before this.
"Harry is just like a wild Indian," said Mary Beck; "he goes fishing andtrapping almost all the time. He won't know what to do at a party. Ibelieve he makes ever so much money with his fish, and pays bills withit." Becky relented a little now. "Oh, dear, I haven't anything niceenough to wear," she added suddenly. "We never have parties inTideshead, except at the vestry in the winter; and they're so poky."
"Oh, wear anything; it's going to be hot, that's all," said industriousBetty, in her business-like checked apron; and it now first dawned uponBecky's honest mind that it was not worth while to make one's selfutterly miserable about one's clothes.
The two girls went scurrying away like squirrels presently to invite theguests. Nelly Foster looked delighted at the thought of such apleasure.
"But I don't know what Harry will say," she added, doubtfully.
"Please ask him to be sure to come," urged Betty. "I should be sodisappointed, and Aunt Barbara asked me to say that she depended uponhim, for she knows him better than she does almost any of the youngpeople." Nelly looked radiant at this, but Mary Beck was much offended."I go to your Aunt Barbara's oftener than anybody," she said jealously,as they came away.
"She asked me to say that, and I did," maintained Betty. "Don't becross, Becky, it's going to be such a jolly tea-party. Why, here'sJonathan back again already. Oh, good! the Picknells are happy to come."
The rest of the guests were quickly made sure of, and Betty andreluctant Mary went back to the house. It made Betty a littledisheartened to find that her friend took every proposition on the wrongside; she seemed to think most things about a tea-party were impossible,and that all were difficult, and she saw lions in the way at every turn.It struck Betty, who was used to taking social events easily, thatthere was no pleasuring at all in the old village, though people werealways saying how gay and delightful it _used_ to be and how many guests_used_ to come to town in the summer.
The old Leicester garden was a lovely place on a summer evening. AuntBarbara had been surprised when Betty insisted that she wished to havesupper there instead of in the dining-room; but Betty had known too manyout-of-door feasts in foreign countries not to remember how charmingthey were and how small any dining-room seems in summer by contrast. Andafter a few minutes' thought, Aunt Barbara, too, who had been in Francelong before, asked Serena and Letty to spread the table under the largecherry-tree near the arbor; and there it stood presently, with its whitecloth, and pink roses in two china bowls, all ready for the sandwichesand bread and butter and strawberries and sponge-cake, and chocolate todrink out of the prettiest cups in Tideshead. It was all simple and gayand charming, the little feast; and full of grievous self-consciousnessas the shyest guest might have been when first met by Betty at thedoorstep, the pleasure of the party itself proved most contagious, andall fears were forgotten. Everybody met on common ground for once,without any thought of self. It came with surprise to more than onegirl's mind that a party was really so little trouble. It was such apity that somebody did not have one every week.
Aunt Barbara was very good to Harry Foster, who seemed at first mucholder and soberer than the rest; but Betty demanded his services whenshe was going to pass the sandwiches again, and Letty had gone to thehouse for another pot of chocolate. "I will take the bread and butter;won't you please pass these?" she said. And away they went to the restof the company, who were scattered along the arbor benches by twos andthrees.
"I saw you in your boat when I first came up the river," Betty foundtime to say. "I didn't know who you were then, though I was sure youwere one of the boys whom I used to play with. Some time when Nelly isgoing down couldn't you take me too? I can row."
"Nelly would go if you would. I never thought to ask her. I always wishthere were somebody else to see how pleasant it is"--and then a voiceinterrupted to ask what Harry was catching now.
"Bass," said Harry, with brightening face. "I do so well that I amsending them down to Riverport every day that the packet goe
s, and Iwish that I had somebody to help me. You don't know what a rich oldriver it is!"
"Why, if here isn't Aunt Mary!" cried Betty. Sure enough, the eagervoices and the laughter had attracted another guest. And Aunt Barbarasprang up joyfully and called for a shawl and footstool from the house;but Betty didn't wait for them, and brought Aunt Mary to the arborbench. Nobody knew when the poor lady had been in her own garden before,but here she was at last, and had her supper with the rest. The gooddoctor would have been delighted enough if he had seen the sight.
Nothing had ever tasted so good as that out-of-door supper. The whiteJune moon came up, and its bright light made the day longer; and wheneverybody had eaten a last piece of sponge-cake, and the heap ofstrawberries on a great round India dish had been leveled, what shouldbe heard but sounds of a violin. Betty had discovered that SethPond,--the clumsy, good-natured Seth of all people!--had, as he said,"ears for music," and had taught himself to play.
So they had a country-dance on the green, girls and boys and AuntBarbara, who had been a famous dancer in her youth; and those who didn'tknow the steps of "Money Musk" and the Virginia reel were put in themiddle of the line, and had plenty of time to learn before their turnscame. Afterward Seth played "Bonny Doon," and "Nelly was a Lady," and"Johnny Comes Marching Home," and "Annie Laurie," and half a dozen othersongs, and everybody sang, but, to Betty's delight, Mary Beck's voiceled all the rest.
The moon was high in the sky when the guests went away. It seemed like anew world to some young folks who were there, and everybody wassurprised because everybody else looked so pretty and was sosurprisingly gay. Yet, here it was, the same old Tideshead after all!
"Aunt Barbara," said Betty, as that aunt sat on the side of Betty'sfour-post bed,--"Aunt Barbara, don't say good-night just yet. I musttalk about one or two things before I forget them in the morning. MaryPicknell asked me ever so many questions about some of the pictures, butshe knows more about them than I do, and I thought I would ask her tocome some day so that you could tell her everything. She ought to be anartist. Didn't you see how she kept looking at the pictures? And thenHarry Foster knows a lovely place down the river for a picnic, and canborrow boats enough beside his own to take us all there, only it's asecret yet. Harry said that it was a beautiful point of land, with largetrees, and that there was a lane that came across the fields from theroad, so that you could be driven down to meet us, if you disliked theboats."
"I am very fond of going on the water," said Aunt Barbara, with greatspirit. "I knew that point, and those oak-trees, long before either ofyou were born. It was very polite of Harry to think of my coming withthe young folks. Yes, we'll think about the picnic, certainly, but youmust go to sleep now, Betty."
"Aunt Barbara must have been such a nice girl," thinks Betty, as thedoor shuts. "And if we go, Harry must take her in his boat. It isstrange that Mary Beck should not like the Fosters, just because theirfather was a scamp."
But the room was still and dark, and sleepiness got the better ofBetty's thoughts that night.