Dorothy's House Party Part 6

Already relieved by the chance of telling her worries, Dorothy related the incidents of the night, and she met the sympathy she expected. But it was like the nature-loving Mr. Winters that he was more disturbed by the loss of the great chestnut tree than by that of the money.

Also, the story of the stranger she had found wandering by the lily-pond moved him deeply. All suffering or afflicted creatures were precious in the sight of this n.o.ble old man and he commented now with pity on the distress of the friends from whom the unknown one had strayed.

"How grieved they'll be! For it must have been from some private household she came, or escaped. There is no public asylum or retreat within many miles of our mountain, so far as I know. I wonder if we ought to advertise her in the local newspaper? Or, do you think it would be kinder to wait and let her people hunt her up? Tell me, Dolly, dear. The opinion of a child often goes straight to the point."

"Oh! Don't advertise, please, Mr. Seth! Think. If she belonged to you or me we wouldn't want it put in the paper that--about--you know, the lost one being not quite right, someway. If anybody's loved her well enough to keep her out of an asylum they've loved her well enough to come and find her, quiet like, without anybody but kind hearted people having to know. If they don't love her--well, she's all right for now.

Dinah's put her to bed and told me, just before I came away, that it was only the exposure which had made her ill. She had roused all right, after a nap, and had taken a real hearty breakfast. She's about as big as I am and Dinah's going to put some of my clothes on her while her own are done up. Everybody in the house was so interested and kind about her, I was surprised."

"You needn't have been. People who have lived with such a mistress as Madam Betty Calvert must have learned kindness, even if they learned nothing else."

Dorothy laughed. "Dear Mr. Seth, you love my darling Aunt Betty, too, don't you, like everybody does?"

"Of course, and loyally. That doesn't prevent my thinking that she does unwise things."

"O--oh!!"

"Like giving a little girl one hundred dollars at a time to spend in foolishness."

Dorothy protested: "It wasn't to be foolishness. It was to make people happy. You yourself say that to 'spread happiness' is the only thing worth while!"

"Surely, but it doesn't take Uncle Sam's greenbacks to do that. Not many of them. When you've lived as long as I have you'll have learned that the things which dollars do _not_ buy are the things that count.

h.e.l.lo! 'By the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.'"

The blacksmith rose as he finished his quotation and went to the wide doorway, across which a shadow had fallen, and from whence the sound of an irritable: "Whoa-oa, there!" had come.

It was a rare patron of that old smithy and Seth concealed his surprise by addressing not the driver but the horse:

"Well, George Fox! Good-morning to you!"

George Fox was the property of miller Oliver Sands, and the Quaker and his steed were well known in all that locality. He was a fair-spoken man whom few loved and many feared, and between him and the "Learned Blacksmith" there was "no love lost." Why he had come to the smithy now Seth couldn't guess; nor why, as he stepped down from his buggy and observed, "I'd like to have thee look at George's off hind foot, farrier. He uses it----" he should do what he did.

How it was "used" was not explained; for, leaving the animal where it stood, the miller sauntered into the building, hands in pockets, and over it in every part, even to its owner's private bedroom, as if he had a curiosity to see how his neighbor lived. Seth would have resented this, had it been worth while and if the miller's odd curiosity had not aroused the same feeling in himself. It was odd, he thought; but Seth Winters had nothing to hide and he didn't care. It was equally odd that George Fox's off hind foot was in perfect condition and had been newly shod at the other smithy, over the mountain, where all the miller's work was done.

"It seems to be all right, Friend Oliver."

"Forget that I troubled thee," answered the gray-clad Friend, as he climbed back to his seat and shook the reins over his horse's back, to instantly disappear down the road, but to leave a thoughtful neighbor, staring after him.

"Hmm. That man's in trouble. I wonder what!" murmured Seth, more to himself than to Dorothy, who had drawn near to slip her hand in his.

"Dear me! Everybody seems to be, this morning, Mr. Seth; and you haven't told me yours yet!"

"Haven't I? Well, here it is!"

He stooped his gray head to her brown one and whispered it in her ear; with the result that he had completely banished all her own anxieties and sent her laughing down the road toward home.

CHAPTER V

RIDDLES

"There's a most remarkable thing about this House Party of ours! Every person invited has come and not one tried to get out of so doing!

Three cheers for the Giver of the Party! and three times three for--all of us!" cried happy Seth Winters, from his seat of honor at the end of the great table in the dining-room, on the Sat.u.r.day evening following.

Lamps and candles shone, silver glittered, flower-bedecked and spotlessly clean, the wide apartment was a fit setting for the crowd of joyous young folk which had gathered in it for supper; and the cheers rang out as heartily as the master of the feast desired.

Then said Alfaretta, triumphantly:

"The Party has begun and I'm to it, I'm in it!"

"So am I, so am I! Though I did have to invite myself!" returned Mr.

Winters. "Strange that this little girl of mine should have left me out, that morning when she was inviting everybody, wholesale."

For to remind her that he "hadn't been invited" was the "trouble"

which he had stooped to whisper in Dorothy's ear, as she left him at the smithy door. So she had run home and with the aid of her friends already there had concocted a big-worded doc.u.ment, in which they begged his presence at Deerhurst for "A Week of Days," as they named the coming festivities; and also that he would be "Entertainer in Chief."

"You see," confided Dolly, "now that the thing is settled and I've asked so many I begin to get a little scared. I've never been hostess before--not this way;--and sixteen people--I'm afraid I don't know enough to keep sixteen girls and boys real happy for a whole week. But dear Mr. Winters knows. Why, I believe that darling man could keep a world full happy, if he'd a mind."

"Are you sorry you started the affair, Dolly Doodles? 'Cause if you are, you might write notes all round and have it given up. You'd better do that than be unhappy. Society folks would, I reckon," said Molly, in an effort to comfort her friend's anxiety. "I'm as bad as you are. It begins to seem as if we'd get dreadful tired before the week is out."

"I'd be ashamed of myself if I did that, Molly, I'll go through with it even if none of you will help; though I must say I think it's--it's sort of mean for you boys, Jim and Monty, to beg off being 'committees.'"

"The trouble with me, Dolly, is that my ideas have entirely given out. If you hadn't lost that hundred dollars I could get up a lot of jolly things. But without a cent in either of our pockets--Hmm,"

answered Monty, shrugging his shoulders.

Jim said nothing. He was still a shy lad and while he meant to forget his awkwardness and help all he could he shrank from taking a prominent part in the coming affair.

Alfaretta was the only one who wasn't dismayed, and her fear that the glorious event might be abandoned was ludicrous.

"Pooh, Dorothy Calvert! I wouldn't be a 'fraid-cat, I wouldn't! Not if I was a rich girl like you've got to be and had this big house to do it in and folks to do the cookin' and sweepin', and--and rooms to sleep 'em in and everything!" she argued, breathlessly.

"You funny, dear Alfaretta! It's not to be given up and I count on you more than anybody else to keep things going! With you and Mr. Seth--if he will--the Party cannot fail!" and Alfy's honest face was alight again.

It had proved that the "Learned Blacksmith" "would" most gladly. At heart he was as young as any of them all and he had his own reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to be at Deerhurst for a time. He had been more concerned than Dorothy perceived over the missing one hundred dollars, and he was anxious about the strange guest who had appeared in the night and who was so utterly unable to give an account of herself.

So he had come, as had they all and now a.s.sembled for their first meal together, and Dorothy's hospitable anxiety had wholly vanished. Of course, all would go well. Of course, they would have a jolly time.

The only trouble now, she thought, would be to choose among the many pleasures offering.

There had been a new barn built at Deerhurst that summer, and a large one. This Mr. Winters had decreed should be the scene of their gayest hours with the big rooms of the old mansion for quieter ones; and to the barn they went on that first evening together, as soon as supper was over and the dusk fell.

"Oh! how pretty!" cried Helena Montaigne, as she entered the place with her arm about Molly's waist, for they two had made instant friends. "I saw nothing so charming while I was abroad!"

"Didn't you?" asked the other, wondering. "But it _is_ pretty!" In secret she feared that Helena would be a trifle "airish," and she felt that would be a pity.

"Oh! oh! O-H!" almost screamed Dorothy, who had not been permitted to enter the barn for the last two days while, under the farrier's direction, the boys had had it in charge. Palms had been brought from the greenhouse and arranged "with their best foot forward" as Jim declared. Evergreens deftly placed made charming little nooks of greenery, where camp-chairs and rustic benches made comfortable resting places. Rafters were hung with strings of corn and gay-hued vegetables, while grape-vines with the fruit upon them covered the stalls and stanchions. Wire strung with Chinese lanterns gave all the light was needed and these were all aglow as the wide doors were thrown open and the merry company filed in.

"My land of love!" cried Alfaretta. "It's just like a livin'-in-house, ain't it! There's even a stove and a chimney! Who ever heard tell of a stove in a barn?"