CHAPTER XIII THE MASQUERADE
"I don't suppose we'll have the party now," observed Gladys, after Sylviahad fallen asleep. "It's a shame. We were going to have such a big timeto-night."
"Indeed, we _will_ have the party anyhow!" said Nyoda emphatically."We'll outdo ourselves to make Sylvia have a hilarious time to-night. Thetime to laugh the loudest is when you feel the saddest. Gladys, will youengineer the candy making? You have your masquerade costume ready,haven't you? The rest of you will have to hurry to get yours fixed, it'sthree o'clock already. There are numerous chests of old clothes up in theattic; you may take anything you like from them. And that reminds me, Imust go and bring out my old Navajo blanket for--" "Goodness!" she said,stopping herself just in time, "I almost told who is going to wear it.Now everybody be good and don't ask me any questions. I have to bring itdown and air it before it can be worn because it's packed away inmothballs."
She ran lightly up the stairs, chanting:
"There was an old chief of the Navajo, Fell over the wigwam and broke his toe, And now he is gone where the good Injuns go, And his blanket is done up in cam-pho-o-or!"
She trailed out the last word into such a mournful wail that theWinnebagos shrieked with laughter.
A few minutes later she came down the stairs with a mystified face. "Theblanket's gone!" she announced. "Stolen. I had it in the lower drawer ofthe linen closet off the hall upstairs, all wrapped up in tar paper. Thetar paper's there in the drawer, folded up, with the mothballs lying ontop of it, and the blanket is gone. Did any of you take it out to wearto-night?" she asked, looking relieved at the thought.
No one had taken it, however. Slim was the only one who wanted to be anIndian, and he was waiting for Nyoda to fetch the blanket for him.Without a doubt it had been stolen. So the midnight visitor had been athief after all! But why did he take a blanket and nothing else? It was avaluable blanket, but the silverware and jewelry in the house were wortha great deal more. The mystery reared its head again. What manner of manwas this strange visitor?
"My mother always used to keep her silver wrapped in the blankets in aclothes closet," said Gladys, "and burglars broke into our house andfound it all. The policeman that papa reported it to said that was acommon place for people to hide valuables and burglars usually searchedthrough blankets. This burglar must have been looking for valuables inthe blanket, and got scared away before he looked anywhere else, but tookthe blanket because it was such a good one."
"That must have been it," said Nyoda. "I've heard of cases before wherevaluables were stolen from their hiding places in blankets and bedding.Well, we were lucky to get away as we did.
"Slim, you'll have to be something beside an Indian chief, for I haven'tanother Navajo blanket. It's too bad, too, because you had the real bowand arrows, but cheer up, we'll find something else. The trouble is,though," she mourned, "we haven't much of anything that will fit you. Theblanket would have solved the problem so nicely."
"Let him wear the mothballs," suggested Justice. "He can be an Africanchief instead of an Indian. A nice string of mothballs would be all----"
Slim threw a sofa cushion at him and Justice subsided.
The stolen blanket remained the chief topic of conversation until late inthe afternoon, when Katherine made a discovery which furnished a newtheme. She was up in the attic, hunting something from which to concoct amasquerade suit, and while rummaging through a trunk came upon aphotograph underneath a pile of clothes. It was the picture of a younggirl dressed in the fashion of a bygone day, with a tremendously long,full skirt bunched up into an elaborate "polonaise." Above a pair ofsoftly curved shoulders smiled a face of such witching beauty thatKatherine forgot all about the trunk and its contents and gazedspellbound at the photograph. In the lower right hand corner was writtenin a beautiful, even hand, "_To Jasper, from Sylvia_."
Katherine flew downstairs to show her find to the others.
"O how beautiful!" they cried, one after another, as they gazed at thepicture of the girl Uncle Jasper could not forget. The small, piquantface, in its frame of dark hair, looked up at them from the picture witha winning, friendly smile, and looking at it the Winnebagos began to feelthe charm of the living Sylvia Warrington, and to fall in love with hereven as Uncle Jasper had done.
"Take it up to Sylvia," said Migwan. "She'll be delighted to see apicture of her Beloved."
Sylvia gazed with rapt fondness at the beautiful young face."Isn't--she--lovely?" she said in a hushed voice. "She looks as thoughshe would be sorry about my being lame, if she knew. May I keep her withme all the time, Nyoda? She's such a comfort!"
"Certainly, you may keep the picture with you," said Nyoda, rejoicingthat a new interest had come up just at this time, and left her huggingthe photograph to her bosom.
Right after supper Nyoda shooed all the rest upstairs to their roomswhile she arrayed Sylvia for the party. In her endeavor to cheer anddivert her she gathered materials with a lavish hand and dressed her likea real fairy tale princess, in a beautiful white satin dress, and a goldchain with a diamond locket, and bracelets, and a coronet on herfine-spun golden hair. The armchair she made into a throne, covered witha purple velvet portiere; and she spread a square of gilt tapestry overthe footstool.
The effect, when Sylvia was seated upon the throne, was so gorgeouslyroyal that Nyoda felt a sudden awe stealing over her, and she couldhardly believe it was the work of her own hands. Sylvia seemed indeed areal princess.
"We have on the robes of state to-night," said Sylvia, with a halfhearted return to her once loved game, "for our royal father, the king,is coming to pay us a visit with all his court."
Nyoda made her a sweeping curtsey and hurried upstairs to dress herself.The costumes of all the rest were kept a secret from one another, and noone was to unmask until the stroke of eleven. She heard stifled gigglesand exclamations coming through the doors of all the rooms as sheproceeded down the hall.
Crash! went something in one of the rooms and Nyoda paused toinvestigate. There stood Slim before a mirror, hopelessly entangled in asheet which he was trying to drape around himself. A wild sweep of hishand had smashed the electric light bulb at the side of the mirror, andsent the globe flying across the room to shatter itself on the floor.
"Wait a minute, I'll help you," said Nyoda, coming forward laughing.
Slim emerged from the sheet very red in the face, deeply abashed at thedamage he had done.
"I was only trying to grab ahold of the other end," he explainedruefully, "like this--" He flung out the other hand in a gesture ofillustration, and smash went the globe on the other side of the mirror.
Nyoda laughed at his horror-stricken countenance, and soothed hisembarrassment while she pinned him into the sheet and pulled over hishead the pillow case which was to act as mask.
"Just as if you could disguise Slim by masking him!" she thoughtmirthfully as she worked. "The more you try to cover him up the worse yougive him away. It's like trying to disguise an elephant."
She got him finished, and as a precaution against further accidents badehim sit still in the chair where she placed him until the dinner gongsounded downstairs; then she hastened on toward her own room.
"Oh, I forgot about Hercules!" she suddenly exclaimed aloud. "I promisedto get something for him."
"Migwan's gone down to fix him up," said a voice from one of the rooms inanswer to her exclamation. "She found a costume for him this afternoon,and she's down in the kitchen now, getting him ready."
Nyoda breathed a sigh of gratitude for Migwan's habitual thoughtfulness,and went in to don her own costume.
Down in the kitchen Migwan was getting Hercules into the suit she hadpicked out for him from the trunkfull of masquerade costumes she hadfound up in the attic. It was a long monkish habit with a cowl, made ofcoarse brown stuff, and it covered him from head to foot. The mask wasmade of the same material as the suit, and hung down at least a footbelow his grizzly be
ard.
"Sure nobody ain't goin' ter recognize me?" Hercules asked anxiously.
Migwan's prediction that an invitation to the party would cheer him uphad been fulfilled from the first. Hercules was so tickled that he forgothis misery entirely. He was in as much of a flutter as a young girlgetting ready for her first ball; he had been in the house half a dozentimes that day anxiously inquiring if the party were surely going to be,and if there would be a suit for him.
Migwan put in the last essential pin, and then stepped back to survey theresult of her efforts. "If you keep your feet underneath the gown, not asoul will know you," she assured him. She had thoughtfully provided apair of gloves, so that even if he did put out his hands their colorcould not betray him.
"Of course, you must not talk," she warned him further.
"Course not, course not," he agreed. "When's all dese here mask comin'off?" he continued.
"When the clock strikes eleven we'll all unmask," explained Migwan, "andthen the Princess is going to give the prize to the one that had the bestcostume."
"An' dey's nobody 'xcept me an' you knows I'm wearin' dis suit?" heinquired for the third time.
Migwan reassured him, and with a final injunction not to show himself inthe front part of the house until he heard the dinner gong, she sped upthe back stairs to her own belated masking.
She had barely finished when the sound of the gong rose through thehouse, and the stairway was filled with a grotesquely garbed throngmaking its way, with stifled exclamations and smothered bursts oflaughter, into the long drawing room where the Princess sat. Migwanclapped on her mask and sped down after them, getting there just as thefun commenced. She spied Hercules standing in the corner behind thePrincess's throne, maintaining a religious silence and keeping his feetcarefully out of sight. She kept away from him, fearing that he wouldforget himself and speak to her, entirely forgetting that he could notrecognize her under her disguise.
Sylvia shrieked with amusement at the grotesque figures circling aroundher. It was the very first masque party she had ever seen, and she couldnot get over the wonder of it. Nyoda smiled mistily behind her mask asshe watched her. How lonely that valiant little spirit must have been allthese years, shut away from the frolics of youth; lonely in spite of thebrave make believe with which she passed away the time! And now the yearsstretched out before her in endless sameness; the poor little princesswould never leave her throne.
Sherry and Justice and the Captain kept Nyoda guessing as to which onewas which, but she soon picked out the one she knew must be Hercules, andwatched him in amusement. She had rather fancied that he would turn outto be the clown of the party, but he sat still most of the time and kepthis eyes on the Princess. He seemed utterly fascinated by the glitter ofher costume. Even the Punch and Judy show going on in the other end ofthe room failed to hold his attention, although the rest of thespectators were in convulsions of mirth.
The Princess called on Punch and Judy to do their stunt over and overagain until they were too hoarse to utter another sound. Migwan, who hadbeen Judy, fled to the kitchen for a drink of water to relieve her achingthroat. She took the opportunity to slip off the hot mask for a momentand get a breath of fresh air. She was almost suffocated behind the mask.
Then, while she stood there cooling off, she remembered the big pan ofcandy Gladys had set outdoors to harden, and hastened out to bring it in.Someone was walking across the yard, and as Migwan looked up, startled,the light which streamed out of the kitchen door fell full upon the blackface of Hercules. Migwan stood still, clutching the pan of candymechanically, her eyes wide open with surprise. Hercules stood still too,and stood staring at her with an expression of dismay. He no longer hadthe monk's costume on.
"How did you get out here?" Migwan asked curiously. "You're inside--atthe party."
Hercules laughed nervously, and Migwan noticed that his jaw wastrembling.
"What's the matter, Hercules?" she asked. "What's happened?"
"Now, missy, missy--" began Hercules, and Migwan could hear his teethchatter, while his eyes began to roll strangely in his head.
"What's the matter, are you sick?" asked Migwan in alarm.
"Yes'm, dat's it, dat's it," chattered Hercules, finding his voice. "I'mawful sick. I had to come outside."
"But I left you sitting in there a minute ago with your suit on," saidMigwan wonderingly, "and you didn't come out after me. Did you go out ofthe front door?"
"Yes'm, dat's it," said Hercules hastily. "I come out de front doah an'roun' dat way."
A sudden impulse made Migwan look down the drive, covered with a lightfall of snow and gleaming white in the glare of the street light.
"But there aren't any footprints in the snow," she said in surprise."Your footprints are coming from the barn." A nameless uneasiness filledher. What was Hercules doing out here?
"Yes'm," repeated Hercules vacuously, "I came from de barn."
Migwan stared at him in surprise. Was he out of his mind?
"Hercules," she began severely, but never finished the sentence, for theold man swayed, clutched at the empty air, and fell heavily in the snowat her feet.