CHAPTER III.
A “MUMPFUL” PARTY.
Certain dainty blue billets were causing a wild flutter of excitement among the ranks of Miss Lyon’s school, for every girl in “our set” received one of the fascinating things.
“Miss Emily Drayton requests the pleasure of—” How deliciously grown up! Emily’s parties were always simply perfect. Emily did not go to school with the others, for she was a delicate little girl, and had her lessons with a governess at home. Her friends rather envied her at times, since she had short hours and not half the Latin and arithmetic to do that they did, and an entire holiday whenever she did not feel quite well; but, in her turn, Emily often looked wistfully at the others, and longed with all her heart for the dear delights of school life. She always felt “out of it” when her little friends laughed and chattered and compared notes over school doings that she knew nothing of. They would kindly explain the jokes and references, but when she did not know dear Miss Bates and cross Miss Raymond and slipshod Susie Dane and stupid Jessie Moore, the things that the girls laughed over till their sides ached did not seem very funny to her. It made her rather a lonely little girl, and, for this reason, her mother was always getting up some simple little party or company for her, and having Emily’s friends to luncheon.
But this special party was to be a particularly fine affair, for it was not only Emily’s birthday, but Hallowe’en as well, which double event Mrs. Drayton always celebrated more elaborately than any other.
Such an excitement among the children, then, when the blue notes began to circulate! Such jabbering at recess, such comparing of notes, such arrangements for going, such questions about each other’s dress! Alas! the party was a whole week off. Could breakfast, and luncheon, and dinner, and going to bed and getting up, and school and lessons, ever fill up this long stretch between?
“I suppose there are new gowns for this important occasion,” said Donald, who had strolled in to dinner, one night. The family were all in the back parlour.
“No,” said mamma. “Their organdies are fresh and nice, fortunately, and new sashes are all they need.”
“Fortunately! Unfortunately, I say,” said Donald, teasingly. “I was going to bring Cricket a dress of porcelain,” referring to a joke of last summer, when Cricket had arrayed a heroine in flowing robes of white porcelain.
Cricket coloured, but answered serenely, as usual:
“If I was a great big boy, eighteen years old, and a Freshman, too, I’d be ashamed of an old chestnut joke like that. I described to auntie what I meant, and she said I meant chiffon—that gauzy, filmy stuff, you know.”
“Filmy stuff would be appropriate,” murmured Marjorie. “With a sash of black carbon ribbon you would be very swell.”
“This family is absolutely disgusting,” said Eunice, looking aggrieved. “Mamma, I should think you would be ashamed of such perfectly impolite, teasy children as Donald and Marjorie.”
“I ’xpect God picked out the bestest children he had around then,” piped up Zaidie, who always put her oar in.
“Indeed, he didn’t,” said Cricket emphatically. “The good ones were all gone, and mamma was in a hurry, and He just sent any He had on hand.”
“Good for you, Cricket!” cried Eunice approvingly, thumping her sister on the back. “Now, Mr. Donald, who has come out the little end of the horn?”
“Eunice, your slang is simply disgusting. Of course, we men talk it, but girls should never think of it.”
“Hark, oh, hark, to the lordly Freshman!” chanted Eunice, clasping her hands and rolling up her eyes.
“Notice everything he says, Eunice, so we’ll know how to behave when we go to college, and are dear, cunning little Freshmen,” chimed in Cricket.
“No more words of wisdom to-night,” announced Donald, getting up. “I’m off.”
“The supply exhausted so soon?” murmured Marjorie, beginning a new corner in her embroidery.
Donald kissed his mother, ignoring Marjorie. “I’ll order you a Dresden China gown, my Lady Jane,” he said, twisting Cricket’s brown curls as he passed her.
On the eventful Tuesday morning, Cricket awoke bright and early—or rather, I should say, early but by no means bright. She had had a most unpleasant dream of having exchanged heads with an elephant, and her neck was, consequently, so much larger, that she could not fasten her collar around it. Eunice suggested they should make a new collar of the sail of the Gentle Jane, which she said would be just large enough. That seemed a good suggestion, but as they went to get it, they saw the Gentle Jane being taken out to sea by some playful seals.
“Dear! dear!” said Cricket in her dreams. “Now I’ll have to go to the party without anything around my neck, because there isn’t anything else big enough to make a collar of, and my throat is getting bigger all the time.” Just then she awoke, clutching her neck. Sure enough, it did feel queer, and was very stiff on one side. She swallowed, experimentally.
“I don’t like that pretty well,” she announced to herself as the result of her attempt. “I wonder if I have the lumbago in my throat,—and to-night is Emily’s party! I won’t have a sore throat. I never did in my life before, and I won’t begin to-night—provoking old thing!”
She swallowed vigorously several times, and winked back the tears.
“There! that didn’t hurt much. Wonder if it’s swollen.” She hopped out of bed quickly, and ran to the glass. She opened the neck of her night-dress and examined her round, white throat critically. It certainly was a trifle larger on one side, and was sore, as she pressed it a little.
“Oh, my patience, if it should be lumbago!” she groaned tragically. She hadn’t the faintest idea what lumbago is, but the name sounded to her as if it might be something that could come in the throat. “Wonder how long it would take lumbago to come on. I won’t have it begin till after to-night, anyway. How queer my head feels! I guess I’ll look inside my throat.”
Cricket turned quickly to draw up the shade, that she might see better what inroads the “lumbago” had already made. The quick movement made her aching head dizzy. She stumbled forward, tripped over her long night-dress, and sat down, hitting the water pitcher which she had left the night before standing by the wash-stand. Over went the pitcher, and out came a deluge of water, almost setting bewildered Cricket afloat, as she lay huddled up on the floor.
“Cricket, what an awful racket you’re making,” said Eunice sleepily, from her bed. “Don’t get up yet. It isn’t time. It isn’t light enough.”
“Don’t get up? Do you think I’m going to lie here and drown?” asked Cricket indignantly, getting rather weakly on her feet. “I’ve knocked over the water pitcher.” She pulled the towels off the rack, and began mopping up the flood that crawled in every direction. “I’m wet through to my bones, I do believe, and there isn’t a dry inch in my night-dress.”
“Put on another one, and get on your bedroom slippers. Don’t hop around there another minute with your bare feet,” ordered Eunice, sleepily, but sensibly.
Cricket mopped dejectedly. “The water tipped straight into my slippers. There! That will do till Jane gets at it. Ugh! my feet are as cold as chopsticks. I’ll change my night-dress, and then I’m going to get into bed with you, Eunice, and get warm.”
By breakfast time, Cricket felt very queer indeed. At any other time her mother would have noticed her lack of appetite and flushed cheeks; but just now it was, of course, put down to the excitement of the coming event. Her throat was stiffer than ever. She managed to slip down a little oatmeal, but the other things hurt too much to attempt.
“I won’t have lumbago in my throat till after this party,” Cricket repeated grimly, to herself, as she went up-stairs to get ready for school. “Only—I do wish the party was last night, and I could go into mamma’s room and lie down all day, instead of going to school. My throat gets sweller and sweller. Do you suppose it could swell up so that I couldn’t eat anything, and would starve to death?”
At this cheerful thought, Cricket groaned so deep a groan that Eunice looked around in amazement.
“Was that you, Cricket? Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, I was only thinking. Do you know those irregular French verbs? Aren’t they awful?”
“I should think they were. They are enough to make a cow groan. Ready? Come on. Why, aren’t you ready?”
Cricket swallowed an unhappy lump in her throat, and winked back a tear. How her throat did hurt, and how her head ached!
“I’m not quite ready. I didn’t have ’Liza brush my hair out, and it’s all full of bones, as Zaidie says. Upsetting that water pitcher, and mopping it up, took up so much time. There! that must do. Where are my books? Oh, here. I’m ready. Come on,” and Cricket ran out first, lest Eunice should see her face.
The keen, fresh air seemed to do her head good, and by the time she reached school, she felt a little better. All the girls were chattering so hard about the party that night, that, for the time being, Cricket forgot her throat.
Under any other circumstances her manner and appearance would have attracted notice and comment. But it must be confessed that from a school point of view, the day was a general failure, and among the many flushed faces, hers passed unnoticed. She was sometimes languid and dull, and then excited and inattentive, making all kinds of queer blunders. She finally distinguished herself by announcing in her history class that Tecumseh, the Indian chief, died of a severe attack of lumbago, exclaiming as he fell, “Don’t give up the ship.”
“Really, Jean, it is fortunate that parties do not come every day,” said her long-suffering teacher, rather surprised that it should be Cricket who said this, for the child’s quick memory rarely failed her. Cricket sat scarlet and mortified, and did not recover even when that stupid Mary Blair wrote on the board in the grammar class, “Troy was concord by the Greasians.”
However, the day slipped away. By dinner-time, her throat felt as if a good-sized potato had taken up its residence there. Her head ached and her bones ached, and down in one corner of her heart she began to wish that some one would say positively that she could not go to the party.
Meantime, after luncheon Eunice had begun to feel heavy-headed and stiff-necked herself. Like Cricket, she carefully concealed the fact, and resolutely put on a bright face and a very “smily” smile, if any one looked in her direction. Each child was so absorbed in concealing her own feelings that neither noticed the other.
At dinner, both being rather exhausted by such unusual exertions, they were so silent that papa asked them finally whether this was the night they were going to Emily Drayton’s party, or the night they were going to be hanged. He himself had forgotten, he said, and he couldn’t tell by their faces.
“They have been going to this party every day and night for a week,” said mamma, looking rather anxiously at each flushed face. “No wonder they are all tired out beforehand. I had them both lie down for an hour this afternoon, also. My chickens, you must eat a little more dinner than that, if you are excited.”
“I positively can’t, mamma,” said Cricket, feeling every moment that the tears would come if she forced another morsel past that awful lump, that now felt the size of a watermelon to her. Eunice resolutely choked down another bit of mashed potato.
“I’m too excited,” she remarked, with a great assumption of cheerfulness. “Mamma, will you excuse Cricket and me, and let us go up-stairs now? I don’t want any dessert, do you, Cricket?”
Cricket jumped up briskly.
“No, indeed. Please ’scuse us, mamma,” and equally glad to escape, the two children flew up-stairs. Each began to make conversation as they dressed. Eliza was there, waiting to help them.
“Lawks, how hot your face is!” said Eliza, her hand touching Cricket’s cheek, as she brushed the brown curls till the gold light in them shone out.
“It’s excitement,” said Eunice. “Mine’s hot, too; just feel. Ouch!” with an undignified exclamation, as Eliza’s hand touched the lower part of her cheek rather heavily.
Cricket suddenly flashed a quick glance at her.
“Eunice,” she said hastily, as Eliza left the room for a moment, “does your throat feel queer?”
“Yes. How do you know?” answered Eunice, surprised.
“’Cause mine does, awfully. It has all day. And my head aches.”
“So does mine!”
“And I’m so hot—”
“And I feel so queer all over.”
“So do I. What can be the matter? It can’t be the party!”
“A party we haven’t been to can’t make us sick. No; I’m afraid we’re going to have the lumbago in our throats, and I think that’s something dreadful.”
“Lumbago? It sounds dreadful. Why, I never heard of it. What is it?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of it. I heard papa telling mamma that May Chester’s grandmother had it, and you know how sick she’s been this fall.”
“This lump in my throat is bad enough for anything,” sighed Eunice, putting her hand to it. “But let’s stand it till the party is over, Cricket.”
“I’ll stick it out,” said Cricket, with grim determination.
Mamma came in just here and put the finishing touches to the dainty dresses, and then they went down to the back parlour to exhibit themselves in all their bravery to papa and Marjorie.
Donald sauntered in as they were being duly admired.
“Hollo, kids! What giddy-looking girls! I am proud of you. Be sure and be good girls. Don’t forget to ‘open your eyes and look very wise, although you feel very silly.’”
“But we don’t feel very silly,” returned Eunice with dignity. “We’re not Freshmen in college.”
“Been polishing your wits for the party, I see. Good plan, my Lady Greasewrister, and Madame Van Twister, your ladyship’s sister.”
“You always did call us names, and I s’pose you always will,” said Cricket tolerantly. “But it amuses you, and we don’t care—do we, Eunice? Isn’t it time to go, mamma?”
“Yes, the carriage is waiting. Put on my cloak for me, Donald. Thank you, dear. All ready, my little maids.”
It was some distance to Emily Drayton’s, and during the drive the children were so silent that mamma was a little worried. So little excitement of this kind was allowed them, that generally they were as merry as grigs.
“What is the matter, girls? I never saw such sober little faces bound for a party. Is anything wrong?”
Cricket longed to confess that her throat felt like a boiled pudding, that the skin of her neck was queer and stretched, that the lights danced confusedly before her eyes, and that she wanted to turn around, go home, and go to bed. However, since she had borne it all day, she did not exactly like to sacrifice so much resolution, and giving Eunice’s hand a tight squeeze, she said:
“No, it’s nothing much; only a joke we’re going to tell you after the party.”
“A joke,” said mamma suspiciously. “Hadn’t you better tell me now?”
“No, really,” said Cricket earnestly. “It doesn’t have anything to do with anybody but ourselves, truly, mamma,” quite believing her words.
“I don’t like jokes that make you look so sober, my chickens. Cricket, are you very warm, dear? Your cheeks are so red that they are almost purple.”
“It’s warm in the carriage. Don’t you think so?” struck in Eunice. And then mamma, to take up their minds, began to talk brightly about some funny occurrence that she had seen that morning while she was marketing, and the children almost forgot their respective woes.
When they arrived at the Drayton’s, most of the children were already there. The lovely house presented a gay scene. Emily greeted Eunice and Cricket rapturously.
“I was so afraid that something had happened, and you weren’t coming,” she said. “We are just going to play ‘Quack,’ and Cricket is always so funny in that. Come over here.”
The classic game of “Quack” was started. All of you know it, do you not? A large circle is formed, and one person, blindfolded, stands in the middle with a cane in her hand. The circle moves slowly around till the person in the centre thumps the cane as a signal to stop, and then it is pointed at some one. This person takes the other end of the cane, and the blindfolded one asks any question, which must be answered by the word “Quack,” uttered in a disguised voice. The one in the centre must guess the speaker, and is allowed three questions.
Cricket was always in demand for the centre, because her quick wits supplied her with funny questions. To-night, however, she rather lost her reputation, for her tired little brain could concoct nothing more original than, “What is your name?” “Do you like butter?” and all the other stupid questions that everybody asked. One game succeeded another, but somehow nothing went very briskly. Presently Mrs. Drayton drew Mrs. Ward aside, anxiously.
“What is the matter with these children? It is so hard to get them started at anything. They don’t seem to be having a good time.”
“I’ve noticed something wrong,” said Mrs. Ward, looking about her. “I never knew it so before, especially at this house. I’ve been watching my own two pretty closely, and something is certainly wrong.”
“See!” said Mrs. Drayton, “that is the eighth child that has dropped out of that game, and it is so with everything we have started.”
“There is something in the air,” Mrs. Ward said to her friend. “And look! there is Cricket actually sitting all alone behind that palm, with her head in her hand. I asked her a few minutes ago what is the matter, but she insists there is nothing. Why not hasten supper?”
“That’s always a good suggestion,” answered Mrs. Drayton. “Will you set them to playing ‘Going to Jerusalem,’ then they will be all ready to march out. Mrs. Fleming will play for them.”
Even “Going to Jerusalem” was not a brilliant success. Most of the children marched rather listlessly around, dropping into chairs when the music stopped, without the usual scramble. Many of the little faces were flushed a dark red, and eyes were heavy-lidded. The announcement of supper was a relief, but Mrs. Drayton’s quick eyes noticed, to her perplexity, that many of the dainty dishes were passed by untouched, and that on many a plate the luscious creams and ices were scarcely tasted.
Directly after supper Cricket sought Eunice.
“Eunice, I can’t stand it any longer. The party is most out, and I must tell mamma that I have lumbago in my throat. If I don’t, it may get so bad it can’t be mended. I mean cured. Do you mind very much if I ask mamma to take us home? The party isn’t half as nice as I thought it was going to be.”
“I don’t mind a bit,” said Eunice, with an unexpected readiness. “I feel too queer for anything. Do you suppose it’s something awful we’ve got, Cricket?”
“I don’t know. I feel as if I were two persons plastered together. There’s so much of me. My eyes are pulled sideways down to my ears. I feel so queer and big,” finished Cricket, dolefully.
So a few minutes later Mrs. Ward heard a dilapidated little voice behind her:
“Mamma dear, we’re ready to go home whenever you are.”
Mamma was absolutely paralysed by this unexpected remark.
“Cricket! is it you? What is the matter, dear? Are you ill?”
“No-o. At least I think not. But—well—my head aches a little and my throat is stiff and hot, and my eyes are leaky and I’m sort of dizzy, and—”
“My darling child! your throat is sore? Why didn’t you tell me before? Where’s Eunice? We will go immediately. Find Eunice, and both of you slip away to the dressing-room without speaking to any one. I’ll say good-by for you to Emily and Mrs. Drayton.”
“Eunice is ready, mamma. She feels queer, too.”
Mrs. Ward’s heart, mother-like, jumped into her mouth. Cricket’s description of her feelings might mean any one of so many things! However, she kept a calm face, and hastened to explain matters to Mrs. Drayton.
“Do you know, I almost believe that all the children are coming down with something,” said Mrs. Drayton, anxiously. “That would account for their all being so heavy and dull, and hard to amuse. Poor little Emily is in despair. She has looked forward to this so long!”
The next day, seventeen of the children who had been at the party were down with the mumps.
