CHAPTER 20
The Odd Behavior of the Grown-ups
Even with all its ingenious though inexpensive improvements, therenovated cottage would probably have failed to satisfy a genuinerent-paying family, but to the contented girls it seemed absolutelyperfect.
At last, it looked to everybody as if the long-deferred dinner partywere actually to take place. There, in readiness, were the girls, themoney, the cottage, and Mr. Black, and nothing had happened to Mrs.Bartholomew Crane--who might easily, as Mabel suggested harrowingly,have moved away or died at any moment during the summer.
One day, very soon after the cottage was settled, a not-at-all-surprisedMr. Black and a very-much-astonished Mrs. Crane each received a formalinvitation to dine under its reshingled roof. Composed by all four, thenote was written by Jean, whose writing and spelling all conceded to bebetter than the combined efforts of the other three. Bettie deliveredthe notes with her own hand, two days before the event, and on themorning of the party she went a second time to each house to makecertain that neither of the expected guests had forgotten the date.
"Forget!" exclaimed Mr. Black, standing framed in his own doorway. "Mydear little girl, how _could_ I forget, when I've been saving room forthat dinner ever since early last spring? Nothing, I assure you, couldkeep me away or even delay me. I have eaten a _very_ light breakfast, Ishall go entirely without luncheon--"
"I wouldn't do that," warned Bettie. "You see it's our first dinnerparty and something _might_ go wrong. The soup might scorch--"
"It wouldn't have the heart to," said Mr. Black. "_No_ soup could be sounkind."
Of course the cottage was the busiest place imaginable during the daysimmediately preceding the dinner party. The girls had made elaborateplans and their pockets fairly bulged with lists of things that theywere to be sure to remember and not on any account to forget. Then thetime came for them to begin to do all the things that they had plannedto do, and the cottage hummed like a hive of bees.
First the precious seven dollars and a half, swelled by some mysteriousprocess to seven dollars and fifty-seven cents, had to be withdrawn fromthe bank, the most imposing building in town with its almost oppressiveair of formal dignity. The rather diffident girls went in a body to getthe money and looked with astonishment at the extra pennies.
"That's the interest," explained the cashier, noting with quietamusement the puzzled faces.
"Oh," said Jean, "we've had that in school, but this is the first timewe've ever seen any."
"We didn't suppose," supplemented Bettie, "that interest was real money._I_ thought it was something like those x-plus-y things that the boyshave in algebra."
"Or like mermaids and goddesses," said Mabel.
"She means myths," interpreted Marjory.
"I see," said the cashier. "Perhaps you like real, tangible interestbetter than the kind you have in school."
"Oh, we do, we do!" cried the four girls.
"After this," confided Bettie, "it will be easier to study about."
Then, with the money carefully divided into three portions, placed inthree separate purses, which in turn were deposited one each in Jean's,Marjory's, and Bettie's pockets, Mabel having flatly declined to burdenherself with any such weighty responsibility, the four went to purchasetheir groceries.
The smiling clerks at the various shops confused them a little at firstby offering them new brands of breakfast foods with strange, oddlyspelled names, but the girls explained patiently at each place that theywere giving a dinner party, not a breakfast, and that they wantednothing but the things on their list. It took time and a great deal ofdiscussion to make so many important purchases, but finally thegroceries were all ordered.
Next the little housekeepers went to the butcher's to ask for a chicken.
"Vat kind of schicken you vant?" asked the stout, impatient Germanbutcher.
Jean looked at Bettie, Bettie looked at Marjory, and Marjory, althoughshe knew it was hopeless, looked at Mabel.
"Vell?" said the busy butcher, interrogatively.
"One to cook--without feathers," gasped Jean.
"A spring schicken?"
"Is that--is that better than a summer one?" faltered Bettie,cautiously. "You see it's summer now."
"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, seized with a bright thought, "an Augustone--"
"Here, Schon," shouted the busy butcher to his assistant, "you pringoudt three-four schicken. You can pick von oudt vile I vaits on deseodder gostomer."
"I think," said Jean, indicating one of the fowls John had produced forher inspection, "that that's about the right size. It's so small andsmooth that it ought to be tender."
"I wouldn't take that one, Miss," cautioned honest John, under hisbreath, "it looks to me like a little old bantam rooster. Leave it to meand I'll find you a good one."
To his credit, John was as good as his word.
The little housekeepers felt very important indeed, when, later in theday, a procession of genuine grocery wagons, drawn by flesh-and-bloodhorses, drew up before the cottage door to deliver all kinds ofreally-truly parcels. They had not quite escaped the breakfast foodsafter all, because each consignment of groceries was enriched by severalsample packages; enough altogether, the girls declared joyously, toprovide a great many noon luncheons.
Of course all the parcels had to be unwrapped, admired, and sortedbefore being carefully arranged in the pantry cupboard, which had neverbefore found itself so bountifully supplied. Then, for a busy half-day,cook books and real cooks were anxiously consulted; for, as Mabel said,it was really surprising to see how many different ways there were tocook even the simplest things.
Jean and Bettie were to do the actual cooking. The other two, inelaborately starched caps and aprons of spotless white (provided Mabel,though this seemed doubtful, could keep hers white), were to take turnsserving the courses. The first course was to be tomato soup; it came ina can with directions outside and cost fifteen cents, which Mabelconsidered cheap because of the printed cooking lesson.
"If they'd send printed directions with their raw chickens andvegetables," said she, "maybe folks might be able to tell which recipebelonged to which thing."
"Well," laughed Marjory, "_some_ cooks don't have to read a whole pagebefore they discover that directions for making plum pudding don't helpthem to make corned-beef hash. You always forget to look at the top ofthe page."
"Never mind," said Jean, "she found a good recipe for salad dressing."
"That's true," said Marjory, "but before you use it you'd better makesure that it isn't a polish for hardwood floors. There, don't throw thebook at me, Mabel--I won't say another word."
The three mothers and Aunty Jane, grown suddenly astonishingly obliging,not only consented to lend whatever the girls asked for, but actuallythrust their belongings upon them to an extent that was almostoverwhelming. The same impulse seemed to have seized them all. Itpuzzled the girls, yet it pleased them too, for it was such a decidednovelty to have six parents (even the fathers appeared interested) andone aunt positively vying with one another to aid the young cottagerswith their latest plan. The girls could remember a time, not so very fardistant, when it was almost hopeless to ask for even such common thingsas potatoes, not to mention eggs and butter. Now, however, everythingwas changed. Aunty Jane would provide soup spoons, napkins, and atablecloth--yes, her very best short one. Marjory could hardly believeher ears, but hastily accepted the cloth lest the offer should bewithdrawn. The girls, having set their hearts on using the "Frog thatwould a-wooing go" plates for the escalloped salmon (to their mindsthere seemed to be some vague connection between frogs and fishes), werecompelled to decline offers of all the fish plates belonging to the fourfamilies. The potato salad, garnished with lettuce from the cottagegarden, was to be eaten with Mrs. Bennett's best salad forks Theroasted chicken was not to be entrusted to the not-always-reliablecottage oven but was to be cooked at the Tuckers' house and carved withMr. Mapes's best game set. Mrs. Bennett's cook would make a pie--
yes,even a difficult lemon pie with a meringue on top, promised Mrs.Bennett.
Then there were to be butter beans out of the cottage garden, and slicedcucumbers from the green-grocer's because Mrs. Crane had confessed to afondness for cucumbers. There was one beet in the garden almost largeenough to be eaten; that, too, was to be sacrificed. The dessert hadbeen something of a problem. It had proved so hard to decide this matterthat they decided to compromise by adding both pudding and ice cream tothe Bennett pie. A brick of ice cream and some little cakes could easilybe purchased ready-made from the town caterer, with the change they hadleft. Thoughts of their money's giving out no longer troubled them, forhad not Mabel's surprising father told them that if they ran short theyneed not hesitate to ask him for any amount within reason?
"I declare," said bewildered Mabel, "I can't see what has come over Papaand Mamma. Do I look pale, or anything--as if I might be going to diebefore very long?"
"No," said Marjory, "you certainly don't; but I've wondered if AuntyJane could be worried about _me_. I never knew her to be sogenerous--why, it's getting to be a kind of nuisance! Do you s'posethey're going to insist on doing _everything_?"
"Well," said Bettie, "they've certainly helped us a lot. I don't know_why_ they've done it, but I'm glad they have. You see, we _must_ haveeverything perfectly beautiful because Mr. Black is rich and isaccustomed to good dinners, and Mrs. Crane is poor and never has anyvery nice ones. If our people keep all their promises, it can't helpbeing a splendid dinner."
The three mothers and Aunty Jane and all the fathers did keep theirpromises. They, too, wanted the dinner to be a success, for they knew,as all the older residents of the little town knew--and as the childrenthemselves might have known if the story had not been so old and theirparents had been in the habit of gossiping (which fortunately they werenot)--that there was a reason why Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were the lasttwo persons to be invited to a tete-a-tete dinner party. Yet, strangelyenough, there was an equally good reason why no one wanted to interfereand why everyone wanted to help.