CHAPTER XV
THE CHILDREN'S PARTY
The little black kitten that Freddie had brought home from thedepartment store was a great friend to everybody in the Bobbsey houseand all loved the little creature very much.
At first Freddie started to call the kitten Blackie, but Flossie saidthat wasn't a very "'ristocratic" name at all.
"I'll tell you what," said Bert jokingly, "Let's call him Snoop," and inspite of all efforts to make the name something else Snoop the catremained from that time to the day of his death.
He grew very fat and just a trifle lazy, nevertheless he learned to doseveral tricks. He could sit up in a corner on his hind legs, and shakehands, and when told to do so would jump through one's arms, even if thearms were quite high up from the floor.
Snoop had one comical trick that always made both Flossie and Freddielaugh. There was running water in the kitchen, and Snoop loved to sit onthe edge of the sink and play with the drops as they fell from thebottom of the faucet. He would watch until a drop was just falling, thenreach out with his paw and give it a claw just as if he was reaching fora mouse.
Another trick he had, but this Mrs. Bobbsey did not think so nice, wasto curl himself on the pillow of one of the beds and go sound asleep.Whenever he heard Mrs. Bobbsey coming up one pair of stairs, he wouldfly off the bed and sneak down the other pair, so that she caught himbut rarely.
Snoop was a very clean cat and was continually washing his face and hisears. Around his neck Flossie placed a blue ribbon, and it was amusingto see Snoop try to wash it off. But after a while, having spoiltseveral ribbons, he found they would not wash off, and so he let themalone, and in the end appeared very proud of them.
One day, when Snoop had been in the house but a few months, he couldnot be found anywhere.
"Snoop! Snoop!" called Freddie, upstairs and down, but the kitten didnot answer, nor did he show himself. Then Flossie called him and made asearch, but was equally unsuccessful.
"Perhaps somebody has stolen him," said Freddie soberly.
"Nobody been heah to steal dat kitten," answered Dinah. "He's jesssneaked off, dat's all."
All of the children had been invited to a party that afternoon and Nanwas going to wear her new set of furs. After having her hair brushed,and putting on a white dress, Nan went to the closet in which her furswere kept in the big box.
"Well, I never!" she ejaculated. "Oh, Snoop! however could you do it!"
For there, curled up on the set of furs, was the kitten, purring ascontentedly as could be. Never before had he found a bed so soft or soto his liking. But Nan made him rouse up in a hurry, and after that whenshe closed the closet she made quite sure that Snoop was not inside.
The party to be held that afternoon was at the home of Grace Lavine, thelittle girl who had fainted from so much rope jumping. Grace was overthat attack, and was now quite certain that when her mamma told her todo a thing or to leave it alone, it was always for her own good.
"Mamma knows best," she said to Nan. "I didn't think so then, but I donow."
The party was a grand affair and over thirty young people were present,all dressed in their best. They played all sorts of games such as manyof my readers must already know, and then some new games which the bigboys and girls introduced.
One game was called Hunt the Beans. A handful of dried beans was hiddenall over the rooms, in out-of-the-way corners, behind the piano, invases, and like that, and at the signal to start every girl and boystarted to pick up as many as could be found. The search lasted justfive minutes, and at the end of that time the one having the most beanswon the game.
"Now let us play Three-word Letters," said Nan. And then she explainedthe game. "I will call out a letter and you must try to think of asentence of three words, each word starting with that letter. Now then,are you ready?"
"Yes! yes!" the girls and boys cried.
"B," said Nan.
There was a second of silence.
"Boston Baked Beans!" shouted Charley Mason.
"That is right, Charley. Now it is your turn to give a letter."
"F," said Charley.
"Five Fat Fairies!" cried Nellie Parks.
"Four Fresh Fish," put in another of the girls.
"Nellie has it," said Charley. "But I never heard of fat fairies, didyou?" and this question made everybody laugh.
"My letter is M," said Nellie, after a pause.
"More Minced Mushrooms," said Bert.
"More Mean Men," said another boy.
"Mind My Mule," said one of the girls.
AT SEVEN O'CLOCK A SUPPER WAS SERVED.--P. 129.]
"Oh, Helen, I didn't know you had a mule," cried Flossie, and thiscaused a wild shriek of laughter.
"Bert must love mushrooms," said Nellie.
"I do," said Bert, "if they are in a sauce." And then the game went on,until somebody suggested something else.
At seven o'clock a supper was served. The tables were two in number,with the little girls and boys at one and the big girls and boys at theother. Each was decked out with flowers and with colored streamers,which ran down from the chandelier to each corner of both tables.
There was a host of good things to eat and drink--chicken sandwiches andcake, with cups of sweet chocolate, or lemonade, and then more cake andice-cream, and fruit, nuts, and candy. The ice-cream was done up intovarious fancy forms, and Freddie got a fireman, with a trumpet under hisarm, and Nan a Japanese lady with a real paper parasol over her head.Bert was served with an automobile, and Flossie cried with delight whenshe received a brown-and-white cow that looked as natural as life. Allof the forms were so pleasing that the children did not care to eatthem until the heat in the lighted dining room made them begin to meltaway.
"I'm going to tell Dinah about the ice-cream cow," said Flossie."Perhaps she can make them." But when appealed to, the cook said theywere beyond her, and must be purchased from the professional ice-creammaker, who had the necessary forms.
There were dishes full of bonbons on the tables, and soon the bonbonswere snapping at a lively rate among the big girls and boys, althoughthe younger folks were rather afraid of them. Each bonbon had a mottopaper in it and some sort of fancy article made of paper. Bert got anapron, which he promptly pinned on, much to the amusement of the girls.Nan drew a workman's cap and put it on, and this caused another laugh.There were all sorts of caps, hats, and aprons, and one big bonbon,which went to Flossie, had a complete dress in it, of pink and whitepaper. Another had some artificial flowers, and still another a tinybottle of cologne.
While the supper was going on, Mr. Lavine had darkened the parlor andstretched a sheet over the folding doors, and as soon as the youngpeople were through eating they were treated to a magic-lanternexhibition by the gentleman of the house and one of the big boys, whoassisted him. There were all sorts of scenes, including some which werevery funny and made the boys and girls shriek with laughter. One was aboy on a donkey, and another two fat men trying to climb over a fence.Then came a number of pictures made from photograph negatives, showingscenes in and around Lakeport. There were the lake steamer, and the mainstreet, and one picture of the girls and boys rushing out of school atdinner time. The last was voted the best of all, and many present triedto pick themselves out of this picture and did so.
After the exhibition was over one of the largest of the girls sat downto the piano and played. By this time some of the older folks driftedin, and they called for some singing, and all joined in half a dozensongs that were familiar to them. Then the young folks ran off for theircoats and caps and wraps, and bid their host and hostess and each othergood-night.
"Wasn't it splendid?" said Nan, on the way home. "I never had such agood time before."
"Didn't last half long enough," said Freddie. "Want it to last longernext time."
"I wanted my cow to last longer," said Flossie. "Oh, if only I couldhave kept it from melting!"