CHAPTER 7
The Girls Disclose a Plan
"Did you sleep well, Miss Blossom?" asked Bettie, shyly waylaying thelodger who was on her way to breakfast.
"Ye-es," said Miss Blossom, smiling brightly, "though in spite of yourwarning and all my care, the bottom dropped out of my bed and landed themattress on the floor. But no harm was done. As soon as I discoveredthat I was not falling down an elevator shaft, I went to sleep again. Ithink if I had a few nails and some little blocks of wood I could fixthose slats so they'd stay in better; you see they're not quite longenough for the bed."
"I'll find some for you," said Bettie. "You'll find them on the parlortable when you get back."
Before the week was over, the girls had discovered that their new friendwas in every way a most delightful person. She proved surprisinglyskillful with hammer and nails, and besides mending the bed she soon hadseveral of the chairs quite firm on their legs.
"Why," cried Bettie one day as she delightedly inspected an old blackwalnut rocker that had always collapsed at the slightest touch, "thisold chair is almost strong enough to _walk_! I'm so glad you've made somany of them safe, because, when Mrs. Bartholomew Crane comes to see us,she's always afraid to sit down. She's such a nice neighbor that we'dlike to make her comfortable."
"We do have the loveliest friends," said Jean, with a contented sigh."It's hard to tell which is the nicest one."
"But the dearest _two_," exclaimed Marjory, discriminating nicely, "areMr. Black and Mrs. Crane--except you, of course, Miss Blossom."
"Somehow," added Bettie, "we always think of those two in one breath,like Dombey and Son, or Jack and Jill."
"But they couldn't be farther apart _really_," declared Jean. "They'reboth nice, both are kind of old, both are dark and rather stout, butexcept for that they're altogether different. Mr. Black has everythingin the world that anybody could want, and Mrs. Crane hasn't much ofanything. Mr. Black is invited to banquets and things and rides incarriages and--"
"Has a silk hat," Mabel broke in.
"And Mrs. Crane," continued Jean, paying no attention to theinterruption, "can't even afford to ride in the street car--I've heardher say so."
"I wish," groaned generous Mabel, with deep contrition, "that I'd nevertaken a cent for that lemonade I sold her last spring. If I'd dreamedhow good and how poor she was, I wouldn't have. She might have had_four_ rides with that money."
"_I_ wish," said Jean, "we could do something perfectly grand andbeautiful for Mrs. Crane. She's always doing the kindest little thingsfor other people."
"Well," demanded Marjory, "aren't we going to have her here to dinner,too, when we have Mr. Black? Please don't tell anybody, MissBlossom--it's to be a surprise."
"Still, just a dinner doesn't seem to be enough," said Jean, who, withher chin in her hand, seemed to be thinking deeply. "Of course ithelps, but I'd rather save her life or do something like that."
"Little things count for a great deal in this world, sometimes," saidMiss Blossom, leaning down to brush her cheek softly against Jean's."It's generally wiser to leave the big things until one is big enough tohandle them."
"Mrs. Crane _is_ pretty big," offered matter-of-fact Mabel.
"Oh, dear," laughed Miss Blossom, "that wasn't at all what I meant."
"Mr. Black," said Bettie, dreamily, "has enough _things_, but I don'tbelieve he really cares about anything in the world but his roses. Hisface is different when he talks about them, kind of soft all about thecorners and not so--not so--"
"Daniel Webstery," supplied Jean, understandingly.
"It must be pretty lonely for him without any family," agreed MissBlossom. "I don't know what would become of Father if he didn't have meto keep him cheered up--we're wonderful chums, Father and I."
"Oh", mourned tender-hearted Bettie, "I _wish_ I could make Mrs. Cranerich enough so she wouldn't need to mend all the time, and that I couldprovide Mr. Black with some really truly relatives to love him the wayyou love your father."
"Oh, Bettie! Bettie!" cried Mabel, suddenly beginning, in herexcitement, to bounce up and down on the one chair that possessedsprings. "I know exactly how we could help them both. We could beg sevenor eight children from the orphan asylum--they're _glad_ to give 'emaway--and let Mrs. Crane sell 'em to Mr. Black for--for ten dollarsapiece."
Such a storm of merriment followed this simple solution of the problemthat Mabel for the moment looked quite crushed. Her chair, incidentally,was crushed too, for Mabel's final bounce proved too much for its frailconstitution; its four legs spread suddenly and lowered the surprisedMabel gently to the floor. Everybody laughed again, Mabel as heartily asanyone, and, for a time, the sorrows of Mrs. Crane and Mr. Black wereforgotten.
The dinner party, however, still remained uppermost in all their plans.Mabel was in favor of giving it at once, but the other girls were morecautious, so the little mistresses of Dandelion Cottage finally decidedto postpone the party until after Miss Blossom had paid her rent infull.
"You see," explained cautious Marjory, one day when the girls werealone, "she might get called away suddenly before the three weeks areup, and if we spent more money than we _have_ it wouldn't be verycomfortable. Besides, I've never seen seven dollars and a half all atonce, and I'd like to."
But the dinner plan was no longer the profound secret that it had beenat first, for when the young housekeepers had told their mothers abouttheir lodger, they had been obliged to tell them also what they intendedto do with the money. In the excitement of the moment, they had allneglected to mention Mrs. Crane, but later, when they made good thisomission, their news was received in a most perplexing fashion. Thegirls were greatly puzzled, but they did not happen to compare notesuntil after something that happened at the dinner party had remindedthem of their parents' incomprehensible behavior.
"Mamma," said Bettie, one evening at supper time, soon after MissBlossom's arrival, "I forgot to tell you that we're going to ask Mrs.Crane, too, when we have Mr. Black to dinner. It's to be a surprise forboth of them."
"What!" gasped Mrs. Tucker, dropping her muffin, and looking not atBettie, but at Dr. Tucker. "Surely not Mrs. Crane and Mr. Black, too!You don't mean both at the same time!"
"Why, yes, Mamma," said Bettie. "It wouldn't cost any more."
Then the little girl looked with astonishment first at her father andthen at her mother, for Dr. Tucker, with a warning finger against hislips, was shaking his head just as hard as he could at Mrs. Tucker, wholooked the very picture of amazement.
"Why," asked Bettie, "what's the matter? Don't you think it's a goodplan? Isn't it the right thing to do?"
"Yes," said Dr. Tucker, still looking at Bettie's mother, who wasnodding her approval, "I shouldn't be surprised if it might prove a_very_ good thing to do. Your idea of making it a surprise to both ofthem is a good one, too. I should keep it the darkest kind of secretuntil the very last moment, if I were you."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Tucker, "I should certainly keep it a secret."
Jean, too, happened to mention the matter at home and with very much thesame result. Mr. Mapes looked at Mrs. Mapes with something in his eyethat very closely resembled an amused twinkle, and Jean was almostcertain that there was an answering twinkle in her mother's eye.
"What's the joke?" asked Jean.
"I couldn't think of spoiling it by telling," said Mrs. Mapes. "Ifthere's anything I can do to help you with your dinner party I shall bedelighted to do it."
"Oh, will you?" cried Jean. "When I told you about it last week Ithought, somehow, that you weren't very much interested."
"I'm very much interested indeed," returned Mrs. Mapes. "I hope you'llbe able to keep the surprise part of it a secret to the very lastmoment. That's always the best part of a dinner party, you know."
"Yes," said Mr. Mapes, "if you know who the other guests are to be, italways takes away part of the pleasure."
When Marjory told the news, her Aunty Jane, who seldom smiled and whousually appeared to care very litt
le about the doings in DandelionCottage, greatly surprised her niece by suddenly displaying as many asseven upper teeth; she showed, too, such flattering interest in thecoming event that Marjory plucked up courage to ask for potatoes andother provisions that might prove useful.
"When you've decided what day you're going to have your party," saidAunty Jane, with astonishing good nature, "I'll give or lend youanything you want, provided you don't tell either of your guests who theother one is to be."
When Mabel told about the plan, she too was very much perplexed at theway her news was received. Her parents, after one speaking glance ateach other, leaned back in their chairs and laughed until the tearsrolled down their cheeks. But they, too, heartily approved of the dinnerparty and advised strict secrecy regarding the guests.
School was out, and, as Bettie said, every day was Saturday, but thedays were slipping away altogether too rapidly. The lawn, by this time,was covered with what Mabel called "real grass," great bunches of Jean'ssweetest purple pansies had to be picked every morning so they wouldn'tgo to seed, and the long bed by the fence threatened to burst at anymoment into blossom. Even the much-disturbed vegetable garden was doingso nicely that it was possible to tell the lettuce from the radishplants.
Two of Miss Blossom's three weeks had gone. She herself was to leavetown the following Thursday, and the dinner party was to take place theday after; but even the thought of the great event failed to keep thelittle cottagers quite cheerful, for they hated to think of losing theirlovely lodger. Whenever this charming young person was not busy at oneor another of the various churches with her father, she was playing withthe children. "Just exactly," said Bettie, "as if she were just twelveyears old, too." Her clever fingers made dresses for each of the fourbiggest dolls, and such cunning baby bonnets for each of the fourlittlest ones.
Best of all, she taught the girls how to do a great many things. Sheshowed them how to turn the narrowest of hems, how to gather a ruffleneatly, and how to take the tiniest of stitches. Bettie, who had tohelp with the weekly darning, and Marjory, who had to mend her ownstockings, actually found it pleasant work after Miss Blossom had shownthem several different ways of weaving the threads.
"I just wish," cried Mabel, one day, in a burst of gratitude, "thatyou'd fall ill, or something so we could do something for _you_. You'rejust lovely to _us_."
"Thank you, Mabel," said Miss Blossom, with eyes that twinkleddelightedly, "I'm sure you'd take beautiful care of me--I'm almosttempted to try it. Shall I have measles, or just plain smallpox?"