Betty's Happy Year

“Let me see your pictures, won’t you?”

“Sometime, yes. Let’s go and sing now.”

“No, we must clear the table first. It’s so untidy to leave it. But you needn’t do it; I hate to see a boy doing girl’s work.”

“Oh, pshaw, it isn’t girl’s work exactly, if you play you’re camping or picnicking or something like that. I’m going to help, and you can’t stop me!”

Hal had begun already to take out the dishes, and Betty gave him a mock sigh, as she said:

“I don’t think my Man Friday obeys me as well as he promised to.”

“’Cause I only obey when I want to,” he responded, and in a short time the table was cleared and the food put away.

“We won’t wash the dishes,” said Betty, as she piled them neatly on the kitchen table. “If Mrs. Carey’s going to bring a lot of servants at three o’clock, they’ll want something to do.”

So they went to the piano, and soon discovered that they knew a number of the same songs.

Hal had a good voice, and they sang away with all their youthful enthusiasm, making such a volume of sound that it could be heard above the chug-chugging of the approaching motor-car.

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Lena, as they whizzed up to the house. “That’s surely Betty McGuire’s voice! No one else sings like that.”

“And that’s Hal singing with her,” said Mrs. Carey, as a masculine voice blended with Betty’s soprano.

Then Lena sprang from the car, and rushed to greet Betty, and all sorts of apologies and explanations followed.

“I’m not a bit sorry!” said Hal, as Mrs. Carey reiterated her regret at the misunderstanding; “I’ve had a jolly time, and now Lena’s come I don’t suppose I’ll be able to get a word in edgewise with Betty Crusoe, all the evening!”

“You will, if I have anything to say about it,” said Betty, flashing one of her brightest smiles at her Man Friday.

XI

A LABOR DAY LUNCHEON

Labor Day was, of course, on Monday, and the Saturday before Betty received this letter:

    Boston, Friday.

Dearest Betty: The loveliest thing has happened! Aunt Evelyn has asked me to make her a little visit in New York (she lives at the Waldorf, you know), and she says I may ask you to go with us on a Labor Day excursion on Monday. So don’t fail me; I’m crazy to see you! I’m so excited over it all, I can scarcely write. But this is the plan. I’m going to New York to-morrow. You’re to come on Monday morning, and we’ll meet you at the ferry – on the New York side, you know. And then, the boat – oh, I forgot to tell you, we’re going to West Point – sails from somewhere near there. But never mind that; we’ll meet you and show you the way. We’re going to carry our luncheon, for Aunt Evelyn says you can’t get anything fit to eat on an excursion-boat. So you can bring a contribution to the feast, or not, according to your convenience. But be sure to come. I’ve never been up the Hudson River, and we’ll have loads of fun. Take that early train from Greenborough, and wait for us “under the clock.”

    Lovingly,
    Dorothy.

“Isn’t it fine, Mother?” said Betty, as she read the letter aloud. “I’ve never been up the Hudson either, and it will be such fun to go with Dorothy.”

“Yes, it will, deary. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely trip. You’ll have to scurry out early, though, if you’re to take that seven-thirty train. You’ll want to take some luncheon, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes; I think I ought to. Ellen will cook some of her lovely fried chicken for me. And I might take some stuffed eggs or some jelly tarts. I’ll talk it over with Ellen.”

Now, Ellen was by nature what is called “a good provider.” And so it happened that when Betty came down-stairs at half-past six on Monday morning Ellen was already packing into a big box the good things which she had risen before daylight to prepare.

“For mercy’s sake, Ellen!” cried Betty, “do you think I’m going to feed the whole excursion?”

“Arrah, Miss Betty,” returned Ellen, placidly, “it’s a fine appetite ye’ll get on the water, and yer city folks’ll be glad to eat yer country fixin’s.”

Ellen was wrapping delicious-looking bits of golden-brown fried chicken daintily in oiled paper, and tucking them into place in the big box.

Then in one corner she placed a smaller box of stuffed eggs, which, in their individual frills of fringed white paper, formed a pretty picture.

Another partition held jelly tarts, with flaky crusts and quivering red centers, and somehow Ellen found room for a few sandwiches, through whose thin bread showed the yellow of mayonnaise.

Everything was carefully protected with white paper napkins, and the whole box was a most appetizing display of skilled culinary art.

“But it’s so big, Ellen,” repeated Betty, laughing. “I simply can’t carry so much stuff.”

“Niver you mind, Miss Betty,” said the imperturbable cook, going on with her work of wrapping the big box in neat brown paper and tying it with stout twine. “You’ve not to walk at all, at all, and ye can get a porther to lift it off the thrain. An’ sure Pat’ll put it on safely fer ye.”

So Betty submitted to the inevitable, realizing that she wouldn’t have to carry the box at all, and proceeded to eat her breakfast.

“It is an awfully big box,” said Mrs. McGuire, as the carriage came to the door; “but if your party can’t eat all the things, you can give them to some children on the boat.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right,” said Betty, and kissing her mother good-by, she jumped into the carriage, and Pat drove her to the train.

There were few passengers at that early hour, and so there was ample room for the box on the seat beside her. Though Betty went often to New York, she rarely went alone, but as Dorothy and her aunt’s family were to meet her, she felt no responsibility as to traveling.

In Jersey City the conductor lifted the box out for her, and a convenient porter carried it to the ferry-boat.

“Hold it level,” Betty admonished him, and he touched his red cap and said “Yes’m,” and then carried the box with greatest care. Betty went by the Twenty-third Street Ferry, and in the ferry-house on the New York side she was to meet Dorothy, “under the clock.”

This tryst was a well-known one, for it made a definite place to meet in the crowded room.

Betty always enjoyed the long ferry, and she sat outside, with her precious box reposing on the seat beside her.

The morning was delightful, but it was growing warm and bade fair to be a very warm day.

Betty watched with interest the great steamer piers, and the traffic on the river, rejoicing to think that soon she would be sailing farther up the stream, where the banks were green and wooded, and the expanse of water unmarred by freight-boats and such unpicturesque craft.

The ferry-boat bumped into its dock at Twenty-third, Street, and Betty picked up her box and started off with it. A porter met her at the gangplank, and she gave it to him with an injunction to hold it quite level. For it would be a pity to tumble the neat arrangement of Ellen’s goodies into an unappetizing mass.

Down-stairs they went, and into the waiting-room, where Betty paused “under the clock.”

Dorothy hadn’t arrived, but Betty remembered, with a smile, that she was nearly always late, so, remunerating the porter, she sat down to wait, with her box beside her.

She had on a suit of embroidered blue linen, and a broad-brimmed straw hat trimmed with brown roses.

The big hat suited Betty’s round face and curly hair, and, all unconsciously, she made a pretty picture as she sat there waiting. Before she had time to feel anxious about Dorothy’s non-appearance, a messenger-boy in uniform came toward her.

“Is this Miss McGuire?” he said, touching his cap respectfully.

“Yes,” said Betty, wondering how he knew her.