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Page 15
Mary's hands came together ecstatically, with a long-drawn "Oh!" Then
she clasped her mother around the knees, demanding, breathlessly:
"Anything for Holland in that box?"
"Yes."
"Anything for Jack?"
"Yes."
"Anything for the baby?"
Mrs. Ware nodded.
"And you?"
Another nod.
"Then there isn't a single word in the dictionary good enough to fit!"
screamed Mary, excitedly, spinning around and around in the kitchen
floor until the red ribbons stood out at right angles from her head.
"There isn't a single word, Holland; we'll just have to _squeal_!"
At that she gave a long, ear-piercing shriek that seemed to go through
the roof like a fine-pointed needle. Holland and the baby joined in,
each trying to make a louder noise than the other. Their eyes were
tightly shut, their mouths wide open, and their faces red to bursting.
"There, there, children!" exclaimed Mrs. Ware, laughingly, as they
stopped to take breath. "The neighbours will think that the house is on
fire. We'll have a policeman after us if you make such a noise."
"The kettle is boiling over!" cried Holland, and Joyce flew to the
rescue. Jack went to change his wet clothes, and the three smaller
children trotted back and forth, pushing chairs to the table, and
helping to carry in the supper.
Many a bedraggled passer-by that evening looked out from under his
dripping umbrella as he neared the little brown house, cheered by a
babel of happy voices. The lamplight streaming across the wet pavement
drew his gaze to a window whose blinds had not been closed, and the
picture lingered pleasantly in his memory for many a day. It was the
Ware family at supper. And afterward, when the dishes had been cleared
away, there was another picture to shine out into the wet night: the
children unpacking the box that Jack had dragged out of its
hiding-place.
Mary paraded jubilantly around the room in her new slippers, the rosebud
sash tied around her gingham apron, the pink parasol held high above her
head, and her face such a picture of delight that one could not look at
her without smiling, too.
[ILLUSTRATION: "SHE SORTED THE RIBBONS AND EXAMINED THE GLOVES."]
Even the baby sat up an hour after his bedtime, to take part in the
unusual excitement. The prospect of Joyce's seeing the old valley seemed
to have unlocked a door into the little mother's memory. Story after
story she brought out to entertain them, of the things that had happened
when she was a care-free little schoolgirl, before sorrow and worry and
work had come to make her tired and sad.
While she entertained them Joyce brought a bureau drawer from her
bedroom, and, propping it on two chairs, began looking over its
contents. She sorted the ribbons and examined the gloves, counted the
handkerchiefs and inspected the stockings, dividing everything into
three piles. One pile was pronounced suitable to take on the visit, one
good enough to wear at home after another renovating, and one altogether
past wearing.
"It's a sort of day of judgment," said Jack, who was watching the
performance with interest. "You're separating the sheep from the goats;
only there's three divisions here, white sheep, black sheep, and goats."
"I love for such days to come," said Mary, falling upon the third pile
and bearing it away as her lawful spoils, "for I always get all the
goats. Now my dolls can set up a milliner's shop and dry-goods store
with all this stuff that Joyce has thrown away."
"You may take my new umbrella with you, if you want it, Joyce," said
Jack. "I haven't used it half a dozen times since I got it Christmas,
and you will want to put on style in Kentucky. Your old one is good
enough for me to use out here in Plainsville."
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