A Dear Little Girl at School

“Oh, Margaret, you know we won’t care,” said Edna earnestly.

“I knew you wouldn’t, but I didn’t know about them all. I shall have to ask, you see, because it seems to me that of all the people I know, the Friendlessers are the very ones who ought to come when it is to celebrate my coming away from there, and then, too they don’t have good times like we do.”

The girls all called the Home of the Friendless “The Friendless” and the children there, “The Friendlessers” so they knew quite well whom Margaret meant.

“How soon is the party to be?” asked Jennie.

“Next Saturday afternoon. The Friendlessers can come then better than any other time, and besides we live out of town, and it will be easier for everyone to come in the afternoon.”

“I shall come,” said Dorothy decidedly, “and I think it is a beautiful idea for you to have the Friendlessers.”

“And of course I shall come,” put in Jennie.

“I know my sister will,” said Edna.

“And mine,” echoed Dorothy.

“There is one thing I hope you won’t mind my saying,” said Margaret; “mother says please not to wear party frocks, and not to dress up much, on account of the Friendlessers, you know, for of course they won’t have any.”

“Of course not,” agreed the girls.

“Mother says we can have just as good a time if we are not dressed up and as long as it is going to be in the daytime it won’t make so much difference.”

“Let’s go tell the other girls,” suggested Edna.

They hunted up Agnes, Celia and the rest of the club members and did not find one who objected to the presence of the “Friendlessers.”

However, when the news of Margaret’s party was noised abroad, there was much scorn on the part of the Neighborhood Club. “The idea,” said Clara, “of going to a party with orphan asylum children! I’d like to see my mother allowing me to associate with such creatures. I can’t think what Jennie Ramsey’s mother can be thinking of to allow her to go. Besides, Margaret is an orphan asylum girl herself and no better than the rest! I’m sure I wouldn’t be seen at her party.”

“And they’re not even going to wear party frocks, nor so much as white ones,” said Gertrude Crane. “I don’t see what fun it will be.”

“And I suppose there are to be no boys,” put in Clara.

“I haven’t heard whether there are to be or not,” returned Gertrude.

The question of boys did come up later when Mrs. MacDonald asked Margaret if she did not think it would be well to invite Frank and Charley Conway, as one of the “Friendlessers” was a boy. The two Porter boys who came out often to play with the Conway boys, were thought of and were invited, and when Edna returned home on Friday evening Cousin Ben informed her that he, too, was going.

“Why, Cousin Ben,” she said in pleased surprise, “how does that happen, when you are such a big boy, really a man, you know?”

“I must confess I fished for an invitation,” he told her. “Mrs. MacDonald was over here to ask if Charlie and Frank could come and I said, ‘What’s the matter with asking me, too?’ and so I got my invite. I wouldn’t miss it for a six-pence.” Cousin Ben and Mrs. MacDonald were great friends and he was quite intimate at the big gray house so it was no wonder that he wanted to be at Margaret’s first party.

It was as Ben said “a queer mix-up.” The first to arrive were the four children from the Home of the Friendless, three little girls and one little boy. One of the teachers brought them out and remained in order to take them back again. The big gray house looked cheerful and more attractive than usual, for flowers were Mrs. MacDonald’s great pleasure and they were everywhere, making up for the plainness of the furnishings, for Mrs. MacDonald did not believe in showiness. Her house was thoroughly comfortable but not elegant.

These first arrivals were very shy, quite awe-stricken and sat on the edges of their chairs scarce daring to move until Margaret took them out to see the greenhouses. After that they were a little more at their ease for each came back with a flower. By a little after three all had arrived, the Porter boys with their Punch and Judy show which they had promised to bring, and Ben with his banjo. All the girls wore plain frocks with no extra ornaments, Margaret herself being not much better dressed than her friends from the Home.

The Punch and Judy show was given first as a sort of prelude to the games which were to follow, and in these even the older girls joined with spirit. The main idea seemed to be that everyone should do his or her best to make the party a success and to give the poorer children as good a time as possible. Ben, be it said, was the life of the occasion. He kept everyone going, never allowed a dull moment, and if nothing else was planned, he would pick up his banjo and give a funny coon song, so that it was no wonder Mrs. MacDonald was glad to have invited him.

Probably in all their lives the Friendlessers never forgot the wonderful table to which they were led when refreshments were served, and which they talked of for weeks afterward. Here there was no stint and the decorations were made as beautiful as possible. There were pretty little favors for everyone, and such good things to eat as would have done credit to any entertainment. It was all over at six o’clock, but not one went away with a feeling of having had a stupid time, for even the older girls agreed among themselves that it had been great fun.

“Did you ever see anything like those children’s eyes when they saw that table,” said Agnes smiling at the recollection.

“It must have been like a fairy tale to them, poor little things,” replied Helen Darby. “I think it was a perfectly lovely thing for Mrs. MacDonald to do. Won’t I have fun telling father about it, and how interested he will be. He has been quizzing me all day about my orphan asylum party, but I know he liked my going.”

“I liked that little Nettie Black,” Florence remarked. “She has such a nice quaint little face, like an old-fashioned picture. Her name ought to be Prudence or Charity or some of those queer old names. Where did you pick her up, Edna?”

“Oh, she is the little girl that I kept house with at the time of the blizzard,” Edna told her. “She lives just a short way up the side road, and she is a very nice child.”

“I found that out,” returned Florence. “Why doesn’t she belong to our club?”

“Because she doesn’t go to our school.”

“To be sure, I forgot that. Well, she could be made an honorary member or something, couldn’t she Agnes?”

“Why, I should think so. We’ll have to bring that up at our next meeting. Would she like to belong to the club, do you think, Edna?”

“She would just love to, I know.”

“Then we’ll have to fix it some way. I’ll ask mother or Mrs. Conway what we can do.”

“I don’t know how we could all get into their parlor,” said Edna doubtfully; “it is so very tiny.”

“We don’t have to,” Agnes told her, “for you know the general club-room is up in our attic and I’m sure that is big enough for anyone. If Nettie comes into the club, when her turn comes for a meeting it can be held in the general club-room.”

This was very satisfactory, but it did not do away with another difficulty which came to Edna’s mind. She knew that Mrs. Black had barely enough means to get along on with the utmost economy and how Nettie could ever furnish even simple refreshments for a dozen or more girls she did not know. However, she would not worry about that till the time came. As yet Nettie was not even a member of the club.

Margaret’s party was talked about at school almost as much after as before it came off. Those who had been present discoursed upon the good time they had had, and those who were not there wished they had been. But to offset it, there came the report that Clara Adams was going to have a party and that it would be in the evening and was expected to be a gorgeous affair. Jennie Ramsey was invited but had not made up her mind whether she wanted to go or not. As most of those who would be invited were the children of Mrs. Adams’s friends and were not schoolmates of Clara’s it did not seem to Jennie that she would have a very good time.

“It will be all fuss and feathers,” she told Dorothy and Edna, “and I won’t know half the children there, besides I shall hear so much talk about what I shall wear and all that, I believe I’d rather stay at home.”

“Clara is going to wear a lace frock over pink silk, I heard her say,” Dorothy told them.

“I should think that would be very pretty,” declared Edna admiringly.

“I’d rather be dressed as we were at Margaret’s,” Jennie returned, “for then we could romp around and not care anything about what happened to our clothes.” Jennie hadn’t a spark of vanity and cared so little for dress as to be a surprise to the others.

“Of course that was nice, but I should like the pretty clothes, too,” rejoined Edna with honesty.

“They won’t do anything, either, but dance and sit around and look at each other,” continued Jennie. “I’d much rather play games like ‘Going to Jerusalem’ and ‘Forfeits’ and all those things we did at Margaret’s. I have all the dancing I want at dancing-school. No, I shall tell my mother I don’t want to go.” Jennie had made up her mind, and that was the end of the matter for her.

Therefore the others heard very little of what went on at Clara’s party. That it came off they knew, and there was much talk of what this one or that one wore, of how late they stayed and how many dances they had, but that was all, and the stay-at-homes decided that, after all they had not missed much, and if Clara’s intention was to rouse their envy she failed of her purpose.

At the next meeting of the club Nettie was voted in as an honorary member. “That seems to be about the only thing we can do,” Agnes announced, “and everyone seems to want her.” So the thing was done.

If there was one thing above another which Nettie did long for it was to become a member of the club whose wonderful doings she had heard so much of from Edna. The two had seen each other often, and now that the spring was nearing, rarely a Saturday came but that they met. It was Edna who took her the joyful news on Friday evening.

“I’ve something perfectly lovely to tell you,” she announced as soon as she was inside the door of the little house.

“What?” asked Nettie with a quick smile of interest.