CHAPTER XVII
NANCY PLANS A PARTY
"What are you doing, Nonie?"
Pencil poised in mid-air; Nancy leaned down from her Nest where she hadbeen working. Aunt Milly was nodding in her chair, her finger andthumb between the pages of "Sarah Crewe," from which she had beenreading until she had succumbed to the drowsy sounds of the summer air.Nonie had been tiptoeing back and forth across the grass making funny,little, inarticulate sounds in her throat.
"I'm playing party," Nonie stopped under the apple tree and lifted athoughtful face to Nancy. "When I grow up I shall have ten childrenand have parties all the time. There'll be harps and violins and drumsand lots and lots to eat. And I shall wear velvet, with a long train,and carry a big fan." She sighed. "Do you always have to be beautifulto do beautiful things?"
"Just doing beautiful things makes you seem beautiful," explained Nancy.
Nonie was not satisfied. "B'lindy makes beautiful cakes and pies but_she_ isn't beautiful. And Jonathan puts seeds in the ground that growinto pretty flowers but--he's ugly! Could I do beautiful thingsand--look like this?" She spread out her shabby skirts.
Behind the troubled gaze Nancy caught the gleam of a vision.
"You can--you can! Nonie, no one can ever take your dreams away fromyou!"
"Not even Liz," echoed Nonie, bitterly.
A few days before a tragedy had touched Nonie's life. From out ofnowhere there had wandered into her affections a hungry-eyed, maltesecat with two small babies. Nonie had mothered them passionately,tenderly. She had hidden scraps of food from her own meagre portionsto feed them; she had fitted a box with old rags and had concealed itbeneath the loose plankings of the shed. Then, mother cat, satisfiedthat her babies were in good hands, had disappeared.
"Even kittens can't have mothers," Nonie had thought, perplexed overthe ways of the world. "Never mind, darlings, Nonie will love you,"and she had kissed each small puss as a pledge of her devotion.
But a week later she found both kittens lying stiff and cold behind theshed. At her passionate outburst, Liz had told her that "_she_ wa'nt agoin' to have any _cats_ under foot!"
Nonie had taken her sorrow to the Bird's-Nest and Nancy and Aunt Millyhad managed to soothe her. But she would not forgive Liz.
"If that mother should ever come back how could I face her," she hadasked very seriously. "She'd know it was my fault--because I leftthem! I wish--I wish babies never had to be left--without mothers!"Thereupon had taken shape the determination in Nonie's heart to someday have ten children whom she would never, never leave--not for amoment!
"Don't forget the fairy godmother, Nonie, and her wand. Some dayshe'll turn your old dress into gold cloth and put a crown upon yourhead." Nancy made her tone light; she could not bear to see the shadowon the child's face. She jumped down from the tree.
"I've just thought of the loveliest plan! Nonie, let's have a party atHappy House!"
"A _real_ party?"
"Yes, a real party--with lots and _lots_ to eat! It's too warm forvelvet, but how would you like to wear a white dress of mine that'sdreadfully small for me? I'm sure Aunt Milly's clever fingers can fixit over. B'lindy shall make a cake--like the Governor had, and AuntSabrina shall get out all the old silver and linen."
Nonie's face said plainly that she could not believe her ears!
"Honest?" she whispered, glancing toward Aunt Milly.
"Well----" Nancy laughed. "Of course, we'll have to consult AuntSabrina and Aunt Milly and B'lindy. Suppose we cough very loudly--thenAunt Milly will waken!"
An hour earlier, as Nancy sat in the Nest making notes here and thereupon her manuscript, the thought of the party had not entered her head.But once there, it grew rapidly. Besides, her heart was very light;she wanted everyone else to celebrate with her--her play was done! Shehad worked day and night; the tiny shadows under her eyes told that.But in her exultation any physical weariness was forgotten.
In the still hours of the night before she had dashed off a sleepy lineto Claire..... "The Gypsy Sweetheart is done. Darling, pray for me!My fate lies in those pages. I may soon be with you atMerrycliffe--that is, if you still want me."
The last line was an afterthought. That day a curious letter had comefrom Claire, perplexing to Nancy because Claire's usual complainingtone had given place to mysterious rejoicing. "I can't tell you_anything_, Nancy, because I promised I wouldn't, but some day you'regoing to know. I'm the most wildly happy girl in the world," andbeyond that the maddening creature had written nothing. "I believeshe's engaged," thought Nancy, indignant and hurt, too, that Claireshould let any such thing come into her life without some hint to herdearest friends.
After repeated coughing Aunt Milly wakened with a start and tried tolook as though she had not been asleep. Nancy told her of the partythey wanted to have at Happy House. She had a way of telling it thatmade it seem very simple and easy. After one frightened gasp, AuntMilly promised to help win Aunt Sabrina's and B'lindy's approval.
Nothing, perhaps, so marked the amazing changes in Happy House workedby Nancy's stay than the eagerness with which B'lindy, and even MissSabrina, accepted the suggestion of the "party."
They sat with Nancy and Aunt Milly on the hollyhock porch after supperexcitedly making plans; at least B'lindy and Aunt Milly were excited;Aunt Sabrina had moments of alarm--it had been so very long since theyhad entertained anyone!
"Do let me plan the whole thing," begged Nancy. "I'm good at suchthings. I always had charge of all the class stunts. Ever since I'vebeen here I've pictured how wonderfully this old house would open upfor entertaining. We'll have flowers in all the rooms--heaps and heapsof them. But let's serve out under the trees!"
B'lindy and Miss Sabrina were horrified at such an idea. When guestshad come before to Happy House they had eaten in dignified manner fromthe dining-room table.
"But your garden is so lovely," Nancy cried. She made a vivid pictureof how it would look on the day of the party. Her enthusiasm won herpoint; even Aunt Sabrina's doubt had to yield before her youthfuldetermination.
So it was agreed that ice-cream and cake--like the Governor hadhad--should be passed from tables set under the old trees, and in thedining-room there would be punch in the old punch bowl that had, inyears gone by, honored many a distinguished gathering under the oldroof. And Nancy should have her "heaps" of flowers everywhere.
"Maybe we'd better keep the sitting-room closed," suggested MissSabrina, faintly. She was too proud to tell them that she could notbear the thought of curious eyes staring at the mantel with its raggedcrack, everlasting reminder of the storm that marked the falling of theshadow over Happy House.
But Nancy would not listen even to this--flowers everywhere and doorsand windows open, everywhere.
When Nancy had declared that everyone in Freedom must be invited--eventhe Hopworths and Peter Hyde, Miss Sabrina had made her last protest.
"The Leavitts, Anne----" she had begun.
"Oh, _bless_ the Leavitts," Nancy had laughingly broken in, "dear AuntSabrina, don't you see that it's your chance to show that--that cattyMrs. Eaton, who's just a common storekeeper's wife and's only been hereon North Hero one and one-half generations, that _you_, SabrinaLeavitt, are not going to be told by _her_ what you should do and whatyou shouldn't do!"
Miss Sabrina had not forgotten what she had suffered from Mrs. Eaton'scruel tongue; Nancy's impetuous argument carried convincing weight. SoNancy triumphantly added to her list, Mr. Daniel Hopworth, Miss(Elizabeth or Eliza, she wondered) Hopworth, Miss Nonie Hopworth andMaster David Hopworth.
For the next few days such a bustle followed that Nancy wondered whyshe had not thought of it before! While B'lindy opened shutters andswept and dusted and aired, the sunshine poured into corners of the oldhouse that had never seen it before. Miss Sabrina unlocked old chestsand sorted out and polished old silver and washed and pressed old linenof exquisite fineness. Aunt Milly made over the white dress for Nonie.Nancy w
rote the invitations, in Miss Sabrina's name, and despatchedthem by Webb to what B'lindy called "Tom, Dick and Harry" in Freedom.
Nancy, herself, invited Webb.
"I'll tell you a secret about this party, Webb! I want everyone inFreedom to know that Happy House _is_ a happy house; I want them to seehow wonderful Aunt Milly is and that she _wouldn't_ be happier in hergrave! I want them to see the old mantel and the lovely rooms. And Iwant them to know that the Hopworth's are invited!"
"Wal, I guess Freedom folks never saw the like before at Happy House,leastways not sence the old missus was alive," the old man hadexcitedly answered. "You _bet_ old Webb'll be thar!" Nancy knew thatas each invitation was delivered at each door there would go with it anexcited account of the strange "sociable" that could include theHopworths, and his added opinion that "thet gal'd sartin'ly startedthings happenin' at Happy House."
The smithy's son was engaged to help Jonathan cut the grass, weed thegardens and clip the borders, under Nancy's direction. So that, whileamazing changes were going on within the house, changes equallystartling were transforming the garden. Old Jonathan straightened morethan once to view with pride the results of their work.
"This garden used to be the pride of the Island," he muttered, seeingin its restored trimness something of its old-time beauty. "But it'syoung hands that's needed."
"It's beautiful, _now_," Nancy had declared. "It's the loveliestgarden I ever saw, Jonathan," and she thought of Nonie's quaint words:"Jonathan puts in seeds that grow into pretty flowers and he's ugly!"Yes, the wrinkled, leathery face under the old hat was not beautiful,and yet something of the beauty of the flowers he grew was reflected inthe expression of the old eyes that bent so tenderly over them.
"That's life," reflected Nancy, indulging in a moment's philosophizing."It's really what we think and do that makes us beautiful or notbeautiful!"
They had worked late; the long shadows of the afternoon danced in lacypatterns over the gray walls of the house. Nancy, watching them,thought of that first disappointment she had felt upon viewing HappyHouse. Then it had seemed an ugly pile of stones, severely lined. Nowit was more like a breathing Thing. It had sheltered and seen shapedso many lives; it held a future, too; it must stand protectingly forothers after Aunt Milly and Aunt Sabrina had gone!
It had, now, with its blinds fastened back, an awakened, expectantlook, as of eyes suddenly opened after a long, long sleep.
Then into Nancy's happy meditations flashed the disturbing thought thatnothing about the garden or the house belonged in any way to her!
"It's just _like_ me to forget," she declared aloud, shouldering herhoe and turning toward the carriage barn. "And like me to get fond ofit all!"
"Anyway, Nonie'll have her party, and even if there isn't a harp and avelvet train there'll be lots to eat or B'lindy's name isn't B'lindy.I wonder," and Nancy addressed the distant outline of the Judson'sbarns, "how Peter Hyde'll _ever_ act at a tea-party!"