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Page 49
"Children were seen and not heard in those days and as soon as they had
been ushered into the guest chamber, where they laid aside their wraps,
and had seated themselves in the parlour, I used to carry my little
stool in and sit down in one corner to listen.
"One autumn it happened that for several reasons mother had had no
invited company for weeks. I was hungry for some of the tarts and
marmalade that I knew would appear if the guests would only arrive, and
one night a plan came into my head that seemed to me so clever that I
could hardly wait for morning to come, in order that I might carry it
out.
"Mother sent me on an errand to the village store next day, and on the
way I stopped at the doctor's house. I could scarcely reach the great
brass knocker on the front door, but when I did, standing on tiptoe, it
sent such a loud clamour through the house that my heart jumped up in my
throat, and I was minded to run away. But before I could do that the
doctor's wife opened the door. I made my best courtesy that mother had
carefully taught me, and then was so embarrassed I could not lift my
eyes from the ground. When I spoke, my voice sounded so meek and shy and
high up in the air that I scarcely recognised it as mine.
"'Mrs. Mayfair, please come to tea to-morrow,' I said. Then I courtesied
again, and hurried off, while Mrs. Mayfair was calling after me to tell
my mother that it gave her great pleasure to accept her invitation. But
you see it wasn't mother's invitation. I didn't say '_mother_ says
please come to tea,' I just asked them to come of my own accord, in a
fit of reckless daring, and then waited to see what would happen. I
invited nearly all the Dorcas Society."
"And what happened?" asked the Little Colonel, eagerly.
Mrs. Brewster laughed at the remembrance, such a contagious, hearty
laugh, that her bonnet-ribbons shook.
"I never said a word about it at home, but next day, a little while
before sundown, I went to the window to watch for them. Mother, who had
been busy all day, boiling cider and making apple-butter, sat down with
her knitting to rest a few minutes before supper. She said she was
tired, and that she would not cook much; that mush and milk would be
enough.
"She couldn't imagine what had happened when all the ladies appeared,
and she sent me to open the door while she hurried to change her dress.
I followed the usual programme; invited them into the guest-chamber to
lay aside their wraps and mantles, and then gave them seats in the
parlour. Mother was puzzled when she came in and saw them with their
bonnets off, for she supposed, when she saw them coming down the path,
that they were a committee from the Dorcas Society, on some business.
But presently one of the ladies patted me on the head, and complimented
my pretty manners in delivering the invitation to tea.
"If a piece of the sky had fallen, mother could not have been more
surprised, but she gave no sign of it then. She only smiled and made a
pleasant answer.
"I began to feel very comfortable, and to congratulate myself on the
success of my little plan. Presently she excused herself, and beckoned
me to follow her out of the room. Without a word, or even a glance of
reproach, she bade me run across the street and ask my Aunt Rachel and
her daughter Milly to come over at once and help her prepare for the
unexpected guests. They were both of them quick, capable women and fine
housekeepers, and 'flew around,' as they expressed it, in such a
marvellous way that at the proper time the customary feast was spread.
"It did look so good! I walked around the table, my mouth watering as I
looked at the tarts and marmalade and spiced buns, and all the other
tempting dishes. Mother watched me do it, and then, just before she
invited the ladies out to the table, she sent me off to bed without a
morsel to eat,--not even a spoonful of mush and milk.
"I lay in an adjoining room, listening to the clatter of knives and
forks, and the ladylike hum of conversation, and knew that the good
things were slowly but surely disappearing, and that I could not have a
taste. I was so hungry and disappointed that I cried myself to sleep.
That disappointment and the lecture which followed next morning was
punishment enough, and you may be sure that that was the last time I
ever invited my mother's friends on my own responsibility."
Mrs. Brewster paused amid the girls' laughing exclamations, and just
then Mrs. Sherman came in from the train, hot and dusty, and her arms
full of little packages. "Come on up to my room with me," she said to
Mrs. Brewster, who was a frequent and familiar visitor at Locust.
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