Betty's Happy Year

“About twenty. I don’t believe Jack will care much about dressing up – he hates it; but I’ll coax him to. Well, come on, May, we must go and invite the others. Don’t worry about your dress, Tilly. If you can’t borrow one, Mother and I will fit you out.”

“Thanks. You’re a dear, Betty; I wish you’d let me make brown bread for you, though. I can make it to perfection.”

“I’ll tell you what, Betty,” said May, “why don’t you have a sort of ‘Harvest Home.’ They’re lovely and picturesque. You make a great big pile of things like cabbages and pumpkins and potatoes, and decorate it with corn husks and things; and then, don’t you see, we can all bring something for it, and afterward we can give the eatables to the poor people in ‘The Hollow.’ And Tilly can donate some brown bread to them, too.”

“That’s a fine idea,” said Betty; “we’ll ask everybody to bring something for the Harvest Home, and then the next day we can all make the round of The Hollow in the big box-sleigh.”

“Yes, I know some families down there who would be more than glad to get things like that,” said Tilly.

“And well may anybody be glad to get the good bread you make,” said Betty. “I’m coming to-morrow, Tilly, to take you for a ride in my new sleigh, and then we can talk about your dress for the party and other things to be done.”

Gay good-bys were said, and the two girls went jingling away in the sleigh again.

Tilly was not so happily situated in life as Betty and May. She lived with an aunt who, though she took good care of her, was not very sympathetic in the matter of young people’s pleasures, and taught Tilly to sew and to make bread, because she considered such things the important part of a girl’s education. And she was right enough in that, if she had only realized that a girl of fifteen wants and needs her share of fun as well as of useful knowledge.

Moreover, Mrs. Fenn was not wealthy, and though she had had sufficient means for comfort, she was economical by nature, and would have considered a purchase of a dress for Tilly to wear just for one occasion, a reckless extravagance.

But in spite of her aunt’s restrictions, Tilly was a very gay and merry girl, and was always one of the half dozen that composed Betty’s little clan of friends.

“I don’t believe the boys will dress up,” said May, as they drove back to the village to deliver more invitations.

“Then they can stay home,” said Betty, promptly. “It’s going to be a lovely party if everybody takes interest in it, and those who don’t take an interest aren’t wanted. Now, we’ll go to Agnes Graham’s, and see what she and Stub say about it.”

Agnes said yes at once, and declared that she could fix up a dress as easily as anything. “Come in, Stub,” she called to her brother who was in the next room; “somebody wants to see you.”

Stub Graham was so nicknamed because he was the thinnest and scrawniest boy you ever saw. He was very tall for his age, and the name of Stub or Stubby was so comical that it pleased his friends to use it.

“Hello, girls,” he called, as his smiling face appeared in the doorway. “What, Betty, a party? Will I come? Well, I should say so! When is it to be?”

Stub festooned his length along a sofa and gave a brotherly tweak to Agnes’s long, thick pigtail.

“On Thanksgiving night,” said Betty, and then she told him what kind of a party it was to be.

“Gay!” exclaimed Stub. “Of course I’ll get up a rig. Sweet little sister will help me, and I’ll be a regular Miles Standish or somebody like that. May I wear a cloak, I mean a golfcapey thing? I think they wore those in Puritan days, with a dinky white collar, like Fauntleroy’s only without lace on it.”

“Good for you, Stub!” cried Betty. “You have just the right ideas! Can’t you help the other boys, – if they need help?”

“Sure! I’ll get them all together, and if they don’t learn quickly enough, I’ll be a dressmaker to ’em. And I’ll help you fix your show, Betty. You ought to have strings of red peppers and onions hung across overhead.”

“Oh, do help me, Stub! Won’t you and Agnes come over in the morning, and help me do those things? Oh, won’t we have fun!”

After that it was easy. Very few of the girls they invited made any objection to wearing the Puritan costume, and if the boys objected, as some did, they were referred to Stub Graham, who soon changed their minds for them.

“It’s going to be perfectly beautiful, Mother!” said Betty, as, after dinner that evening, she sat on a low stool at her mother’s side.

This was Betty’s favorite position, for, though a big girl, she loved to cuddle against her mother and caress her pretty hand, or play with the laces and ribbons of her dainty gown. And now, in their beautiful drawing-room at Denniston, they sat before the big open fire, while Betty told about the party.

Jack, who lounged in a big chair on the other side of the fireplace, was greatly interested. To Betty’s surprise he was entirely willing to wear a Puritan costume, though he observed, incidentally, he’d rather dress as an Indian, and Indians were quite as appropriate to the period as Puritans.

“But they didn’t attend the Thanksgiving feasts,” said Betty; “they lurked in the ambushes; so if you want to do that, all right.”

“Ho!” cried Jack, “I believe you think an ambush is a kind of a shrub!”

“It is, isn’t it, Mother?” asked Betty, turning her big dark eyes confidingly to her mother’s loving face.

“No, my girlie, that’s one of your funny mistakes. But you’re right about the Indians not joining with the Puritans at table; at least, they didn’t often do so.”

Both Betty and Jack had been deprived of early education, and though they were now studying very hard in a brave endeavor to “catch up” to other children of their own age, they frequently made errors which were quite funny enough to make any one smile.

So Jack good-naturedly explained to Betty about Indians in ambush, which was a subject he had quite thoroughly studied in his history lessons.

“And if I can’t be an Indian,” he went on, “I’ll be a Puritan gentleman. Grandma Jean will make my toggery; I’ll tell her just how, and I’ll make you proud of me, Betty.”

Grandma Jean was Mrs. Kinsey, the housekeeper and general assistant to the children, whenever they needed her capable aid.

“And what shall I wear, Mother?” asked Betty, draping the soft frills of her mother’s trailing gown across her own slippered feet.

“I think you’ll have to be the ‘Puritan maiden, Priscilla,’ though you’re far from the right type. Your dark curls, dancing eyes, and red cheeks ought to be pale, fair hair in smooth bands, and a pale face with meek eyes.”

“Ho!” laughed Jack, “you’re not very Puritanic, are you, Betty? But you’ll look all right in a cap, I’m sure.”

“I think I’ll make you a dress of gray silk,” went on Mrs. McGuire; “with a soft mull fichu crossed on your breast, and a starched cap, turned back in Puritan fashion.”

“I like red,” observed Betty, looking down at her own red cashmere frock with black velvet bows on it.

“But not for Puritan attire,” said her mother, smiling. “I’ll fix your costume, Betty, and you must promise not to slip up-stairs and add a red sash at the last minute.”

Betty’s fondness for bright colors, and especially red, was a household word, and Mrs. McGuire fancied that the novelty of plain dove-gray and white would not be unbecoming to rosy-cheeked Betty.

For the next few days nothing was talked of but the old-fashioned party.

Pete was consulted about the Harvest Home part of it, and he suggested that an old flower stand which was out in the tool house should be painted up, and put in one end of the dining-room to hold the donations of fruits and vegetables.

Then, by adding a few vines and flowers, it could be made an attractive decoration.

“Fine!” cried Betty. “That’ll be just the thing! We can put pumpkins and cabbages down below, and apples and potatoes in the upper shelves, and trail vines over them all.”

Ellen, the cook, was quite willing to make all sorts of goodies that were deemed appropriate, and to the lists of baked beans and gingerbread, were added such satisfactory dishes as roast turkey and pumpkin-pie.

But no ice-cream or dainty salads or bonbons were allowed, for Betty wanted to keep the real atmosphere of a plain old-fashioned Puritan Thanksgiving.

Preparations went busily on, until on Tuesday a letter came from Grandfather Irving.

He was the father of Mrs. McGuire, and lived in Boston. Both Mr. and Mrs. Irving had been invited long ago to spend Thanksgiving at Denniston, but had declined because of another engagement.

Now, Mr. Irving wrote, the other engagement had been canceled, and they were greatly pleased to say they could go to Denniston after all. Moreover, he announced, they would bring with them a charming young lady who was visiting them.

“She is an English girl,” Mr. Irving wrote, “Miss Evangeline Maxwell. As she is sixteen years old, she will prove a delightful companion for Betty, and I am glad to show her such an attractive portion of our country, as I am sure Denniston must be. She has never visited America before, and though she finds some of our ways strange, she tries to adapt herself to them. We will arrive on Wednesday afternoon about four o’clock.”