CHAPTER XIII
THE BARN DANCE
Such a "hurly-burly" as there was about the old Corner House on Fridayafternoon! Everybody save Aunt Sarah was on the _qui vive_ over theChristmas party--for this was the first important social occasion towhich any of the Kenway sisters had been invited since coming to Miltonto live.
Miss Titus, that famous gossip and seamstress, had been called in again,and the girls all had plenty of up-to-date winter frocks made. MissTitus' breezy conversation vastly interested Dot, who often sat silentlynursing her Alice-doll in the sewing room, ogling the seamstresswonderingly as her tongue ran on. "'N so, you see, he says to her," wasa favorite phrase with Miss Titus.
Mrs. MacCall said the seamstress' tongue was "hung in the middle and ranat both ends." But Dot's comment was even more to the point. After MissTitus had started home after a particularly gossipy day at the oldCorner House, Dot said:
"Ruthie, don't you think Miss Titus seems to know an awful lot of _un-sonews_?"
However, to come to the important Friday of Carrie Poole's party: Ruthand Agnes were finally dressed. They only _looked_ at their supper. Whowanted to eat just before going to a real, country barn-dance? That iswhat Carrie had promised her school friends.
Ruth and Agnes had their coats and furs on half an hour before NealeO'Neil came for them. It was not until then that the girls noticed howreally shabby Neale was. His overcoat was thin, and plainly had not beenmade for him.
Ruth knew she could not give the proud boy anything of value. He wasmaking his own way and had refused every offer of assistance they hadmade him. He bore his poverty jauntily and held his head so high, andlooked at the world so fearlessly, that it would have taken courageindeed to have accused him of being in need.
He strutted along beside the girls, his unmittened hands deep in hispockets. His very cheerfulness denied the cold, and when Ruth timidlysaid something about it, Neale said gruffly that "mittens were forbabies!"
It was a lowery evening as the trio of young folk set forth. The cloudshad threatened snow all day, and occasionally a flake--spying out theland ahead of its vast army of brothers--drifted through the air andkissed one's cheek.
Ruth, Agnes, and Neale talked of the possible storm, and the comingChristmas season, and of school, as they hurried along. It was a longwalk out the Buckshot Road until they came in sight of the brilliantlylighted Poole farmhouse.
It stood at the top of the hill--a famous coasting place--and it lookedalmost like a castle, with all its windows alight, and now and then aflutter of snowflakes falling between the approaching young people andthe lampshine from the doors and windows.
The girls and boys were coming from all directions--some from across theopen, frozen fields, some from crossroads, and other groups, like theCorner House girls and Neale O'Neil, along the main highway.
Some few came in hacks, or private carriages; but not many. Miltonpeople were, for the most part, plain folk, and frowned upon anyostentation.
The Corner House girls and their escort reached the Poole homestead ingood season. The entire lower floor was open to them, save the kitchen,where Mother Poole and the hired help were busy with the huge supperthat was to be served later.
There was music and singing, and a patheoscope entertainment at first,while everybody was getting acquainted with everybody else. But the boyssoon escaped to the barn.
The Poole barn was an enormous one. The open floor, with the great mowson either side, and the forest of rafters overhead, could haveaccommodated a full company of the state militia, for its drill andevolutions.
Under the mows on either hand were the broad stalls for the cattle--thehorses' intelligent heads looking over the mangers at the brilliantlylighted scene, from one side, while the mild-eyed cows and oxen chewedtheir cud on the other side of the barn floor.
All the farm machinery and wagons had been removed, and the open spacethoroughly swept. Rows of Chinese lanterns, carefully stayed so that thecandles should not set them afire, were strung from end to end of thebarn. Overhead the beams of three great lanterns were reflected downwardupon the dancing-floor.
When the boys first began to crowd out to the barn, all the decoratingwas not quite finished, and the workmen had left a rope hanging from abeam above. Some of the boys began swinging on that rope.
"Here's Neale! Here's Neale O'Neil!" cried one of the sixth grade boyswhen Neale appeared. "Come on, Neale. Show us what you did on the ropein the school gym."
Most boys can easily be tempted to "show off" a little when it comes togymnastic exercises. Neale seized the rope and began to mount it,stiff-legged and "hand over hand." It was a feat that a professionalacrobat would have found easy, but that very few but professionals couldhave accomplished.
It was when he reached the beam that the boy surprised his mates. He gothis legs over the beam and rested for a moment; then he commenced thedescent.
In some way he wrapped his legs around the rope and, head down, suddenlyshot toward the floor at a fear-exciting pace.
Several of the girls, with Mr. Poole, were just entering the barn. Thegirls shrieked, for they thought Neale was falling.
But the boy halted in midflight, swung up his body quickly, seized therope again with both hands, and dropped lightly to the floor.
"Bravo!" cried Mr. Poole, leading the applause. "I declare, that waswell done. I saw a boy at Twomley & Sorber's Circus this last summer dothat very thing--and he did it no better."
"Oh, but that couldn't have been Neale, Mr. Poole," Agnes Kenwayhastened to say, "for Neale tells us that he never went to a circus inhis life."
"He might easily be the junior member of an acrobatic troupe, just thesame," said Mr. Poole; but Neale had slipped away from them for the timebeing and the farmer got no chance to interview the boy.
A large-sized talking machine was wheeled into place and the farmer putin the dance records himself. The simple dances--such as they hadlearned at school or in the juvenile dancing classes--brought even themost bashful boys out upon the floor. There were no wallflowers, forCarrie was a good hostess and, after all, had picked her company withsome judgment.
The girls began dancing with their furs and coats on; but soon theythrew their wraps aside, for the barn floor seemed as warm as anyballroom.
They had lots of fun in the "grand march," and with a magic-lantern oneof the boys flashed vari-colored lights upon the crowd from theloft-ladder at the end of the barn.
Suddenly Mr. Poole put a band record in the machine, and as the marchstruck up, the great doors facing the house were rolled back. They hadbeen dancing for more than two hours. It was after ten o 'clock.
"Oh!" shouted the girls.
"Ah!" cried the boys.
The snow was now drifting steadily down, and between the illumination bythe colored slides in the lantern, and that from the blazing windows ofthe big house, it was indeed a scene to suggest fairyland!
"Into the house--all of you!" shouted Mr. Poole. "Boys, assist yourpartners through the snow."
"Come on! Come on!" shouted Carrie, in the lead with Neale O'Neil."Forward, the Light Brigade!"
"Charge for the _eats_, they said!" added Agnes. "Oh--ow--ouch! over myshoe in the snow."
"And it's we-e-e-et!" wailed another of the girls. "Right down my neck!"
"'Be-you-ti-ful snow! He may sing whom it suits-- I object to the stuff 'cause it soaks through my boots!'"
quoted Agnes. "Hurry up, you ahead!"
So the march was rather ragged--more in the nature of a raid, indeed.But they had to halt at the side door where the two maids stood armedwith brooms, for Mrs. Poole did not propose that the crowd should bringin several bushels of snow on their feet.
In the dining and sitting-rooms were long tables, and all loaded withgood things. There were no seats, but plenty of standing room about thetables. Everybody helped everybody else, and there was a lot of fun.
Some of the girls began to be troubled by the storm. They made frequenttrips t
o the windows to look out of doors. Soon wraps appeared and thegirls began to say good-night to their young hostess.
"I don't see how we're ever going to get home!" cried one of the girlswho lived at the greatest distance.
Farmer Poole had thought of that. He had routed out his men again, andthey harnessed the horses to a big pung and to two smaller sleighs.
Into these vehicles piled both boys and girls who lived on the otherside of Milton. A few private equipages arrived for some of the youngfolk. The fathers of some had tramped through the snow to the farmhouseto make sure that their daughters were properly escorted home in thefast quickening storm.
To look out of doors, it seemed a perfect wall of falling snow that thelamplight streamed out upon. Fortunately it was not very cold, nor didthe wind blow. But at the corner of the house there was a drift as deepas Neale O'Neil's knees.
"But we'll pull through all right, girls, if you want to try it," heassured Ruth and Agnes.
They did not like to wait until the sledges got back; that might not befor an hour. And even then the vehicles would be overcrowded. "Come on!"said Agnes. "Let's risk it, Ruth."
"I don't know but that we'd better----"
"Pshaw! Neale will get us through. He knows a shortcut--so he says."
"Of course we can trust Neale," said the older Corner House girl,smiling, and she made no further objection.
They had already bidden their hostess and her father and mothergood-night. So when the trio set off toward town nobody saw them start.They took the lane beside the barn and went right down the hill, betweenthe stone fences, now more than half hidden by the snow.
When they got upon the flats, and the lights of the house were hidden,it did seem as though they were in a great, white desert.
"Who told you this was a short way to town?" demanded Agnes, of Neale.
"Why, one of the girls told me," Neale said, innocently enough. "Youknow--that Severn girl."
"What! Trix Severn?" shrieked Agnes.
"Yes."
"I believe she started you off this way, just for the sake of getting usall into trouble," cried Agnes. "Let's go back!"
But they were now some distance out upon the flats. Far, far ahead therewere faint lights, denoting the situation of Milton; but behind them allthe lights on the hill had been quenched. The Pooles had extinguishedthe lamps at the back of the house, and of course ere this the greatbarn itself was shrouded in darkness.
The snow came thicker and faster. They were in the midst of a world ofwhite and had there been any shelter at all at hand, Neale would haveinsisted upon taking advantage of it. But there was nothing of the kind.