Six Girls Part 31

"Kat! Is it possible? For me? Who made it?"

"I did, to be sure, all alone by myself."

"Where's the other gla.s.s?"

"Other? Patience! won't one gla.s.s do you?"

"No, but wait; I'll get it," and away he went, coming back in a moment with an empty gla.s.s, into which he poured half the cool refres.h.i.+ng contents.

"There! To be more social, you see. Now, mademoiselle, let's drink to health, happiness, and everlasting peace and friends.h.i.+p between us, from this moment henceforth. Shall we?"

"Yes," said Kat, with her brightest smile; so they clinked gla.s.ses and drank merrily in the shady porch; then shook hands to strengthen the contract, and made mutual resolves to smoke the pipe of peace forever.

Meantime Kittie, unconscious of the great reconciliation just being sealed, was having a sorry time by herself out in the hot kitchen. The icing wouldn't ice worth a cent, but persisted in being sloppy and unmanageable; and the more she spatted and smoothed, the worse it looked; and finally she called to Bea, in worn-out despair:

"I don't see what in the world is the matter with it," cried the discouraged icer, setting forth her work with a sigh of exhausted energy. "Do you see what's wrong?"

"You've iced it on the wrong side," said Bea, smothering her own disappointment, out of consideration for Kittie's tired despair. "You see the top always puffs and bakes out of shape, so the way to do is to ice the bottom, so it will look smooth and nice."

"Yes, to be sure; what a goose I was not to think! I tried to make it look even by filling the dents up, and they're all perfect little puddles;" cried Kittie in heated disgust. "What shall we do, make another one? Though I'd be afraid to try. I never made any kind but the very plainest and that wouldn't do."

"No, I had rather have this. Put it down cellar in the very coolest place, and I guess it will harden up all right," advised Bea, smothering a little sigh of regretful anxiety, as she tried to give comfort to the discouraged cook. So Kittie carried it down cellar, and throughout the rest of the day made regular trips down to see if it was hardening any; but it wasn't, and her spirits sank so low that the astonis.h.i.+ng sight of Ralph and Kat, sworn enemies when last she saw them, coming slowly up from the pond under one umbrella and evidently on such amicable grounds, did not rouse her, except to a moment of amaze; after which, she sank back into a world of troubled dreams, where there seemed to be nothing but cakes, swimming about in puddles of icing, while a dreadful penalty hung above her defenceless head, if the puddles did not congeal into ornamental coverings before a given time.

"Oh, dear, oh! What can the matter be?" sang Ralph, stopping at the kitchen window, just in time to see her coming from the cellar-way with a face bereft of all hope. "What has happened?"

"Oh, Ralph! I don't know what I shall do," she cried, with desponding agony, and then sat down on the wood-box and burst into tears.

"Why, bless your poor little heart! Tell me about it," exclaimed Ralph, swinging himself into the window, and hurrying to turn comforter.

"The ca-ake is ruined," sobbed Kittie, entirely given over to despair and grief. "It's all slopped and soaked to pieces in the old icing--and I don't want to tell Bea--and I don't know what to do, either.

I--I--fan--fanned it a whole hour to make it colder, and it didn't do a bit of good, and--oh, dear me!"

"Well, that is a calamity, to be sure," said Ralph, feeling a masculine helplessness since the trouble lay within the domain of cookery. "But then, never mind; we'll drink lemonade, and let the cake go."

"Yes, I'd just as soon, but Bea--she'll be so disappointed, and I hate to tell her," sobbed Kittie, wailing.

"But Bea is reasonable," urged Ralph. "She will know you did your best, and ought to be ashamed if she says anything cross."

"Oh, it isn't that," cried Kittie, hastily. "She knows I tried, and she won't say a word, but then she'll be so disappointed, because she wants everything nice for Miss Barnett, and--and, I hate to tell her."

"Exactly," said Ralph, much touched at this little evidence of sisterly consideration, and feeling a greater desire than ever to do something to help the cause along. "See here, Kittie," he exclaimed suddenly, and Kittie looked up quickly, for there was something promising in the voice. "Do you dry those eyes out in a hurry, and run out doors to get cool and cheerful, and don't ask me any questions."

"But Ralph--"

"Go, I say, and do just as I tell you. Don't give that cake another thought, but go and fix yourself as pretty as you can for this evening, and I promise you everything shall be all right."

"Oh, you blessed boy," cried Kittie, with a gasp of relief.

"Boy! Don't insult me; remember I will vote this Fall."

"To be sure; I beg your pardon," and Kittie began to laugh through her tears. She hadn't the slightest idea what he could do to make matters all right, but then he had said he would, and that was enough. She never doubted but what he could do whatever he set his mind to.

Just after it came time to light the parlors, it became evident to all that something was the matter with Kat. She didn't say anything, but on coming in from a late tow on the pond, and finding everything lighted, she gave a gasp, and stood perfectly still in the parlor door.

"Well, what were you down to the pond this late for?" asked Bea, flitting about in her white dress, with the softest color in her cheeks, a knot of blush roses in her hair, and another in her belt.

"I--I was cool--I mean I wanted to get cool," answered Kat with a stammer, and her eyes going hurriedly from one room to the other.

"What did you light up so early for?"

"I don't call seven o'clock early--there goes the gate now."

Kat groaned, as if in deepest despair, then dashed up stairs, and cast herself into the first chair with a tragic air.

"I knew it! I knew it! oh, what a miserable wretch I am, and whatever will I do? I never never will be anything but a black sheep to the longest day that I live?" After which cheerful prophesy, she ran both hands over her hair by way of smoothing any stray locks, gave her skirts a twist, and herself a general shake, and started slowly down stairs again, with a grimly resigned air.

It was only the most informal of little evening company, so every one came early, and in a little while the quiet evening air grew musical with merry voices and gay laughter, then became quieter, and was replaced by notes from the piano, or some one voice trilling out a popular song or a pretty ballad. Everything went flouris.h.i.+ngly; to be sure, there were more ladies than gentlemen, which required much watching and managing on Bea's part, that no lady should suffer a dearth of masculine attention. Once, Ralph was missing from the room for some little time, which worried her greatly, but when he came back, she noticed that he nodded and smiled to Kittie, which was unintelligible to her, but was readily understood by her sister, to mean that everything was right. Just as the young hostess had decided that it was time to serve refreshments, some one asked her to sing.

"I? Oh, I never sing," she said with a modest blush, and drawing back, while her heart began to flutter nervously.

"I'm quite sure you do," persisted the young lady; whereupon the request was strengthened by all voices; and conscious that it would be impolite to still refuse, Bea walked to the piano, with her fingers growing cold as ice, and a die-away feeling in her throat. It took a few minutes to spin up the stool and decide what to sing, then in a voice that would quaver, she began a little Scotch song, and was just through the first verse when things began to look strange. Was it because she was so nervous, or was it growing dark? She played a few rambling chords, then she stopped and looked at the lamp with a chilly foreboding, and--_it was going out_!

Somebody else had noticed it before she did, and now as she sat in blank, dazed mortification, some one crossed the room, and lifting the lamp, blew it out, saying with a careless laugh:

"Several adventurous bugs were burning themselves to death, so I have ended their, and our misery, by putting out what they were slowly killing, and now while they are being dislodged, and the lamp relighted, shall we adjourn to the porch, ladies and gentlemen? The moon is coming up gorgeously."

Bea could have gone down on her knees in grat.i.tude to him, and Kat, the terrible, actually threw him a kiss in the dark, before she rushed out to the kitchen, where Bea had carried the lamp.

"It's all my fault, every bit," she cried remorsefully. "I thought this morning, when I cleaned the lamps, that I would wait until it got cooler to go up after the coal-oil, and then I forgot it, clean as a s.h.i.+ngle, and I'll do anything under the sun if you'll forgive me."

"Don't talk," said Bea sharply, too excited and nervous to say much.

"Go, bring every lamp in the house, quick!"

"Never mind," exclaimed Kittie, coming hurriedly in, as Kat went off on a rush. "Don't feel bad, Bea, not a soul noticed it, and you were singing beautifully; besides you just ought to look in the dining-room; there's the most magnificent cake that you ever saw, and a freezer of delicious ice-cream!"

Bea dropped the lamp-top from her trembling fingers, and turned her face with incredulous relief and delight.

"Oh, Kittie!"

"Yes, and I'm going right out now to distribute plates and napkins, and let them eat out in the moonlight; it's nearly as light as day, so don't worry another bit; the other big lamp will burn over two hours, yet, and you can empty enough from the little ones into this to make it go, and everybody but Dr. Barnett thinks it was bugs. Only hurry and come out;"

and away fluttered Kittie, with the memory of Bea's brightened face, to provide the young guests with plates and expectations.

So, when Bea replaced the lamp in the parlor, with its blaze high and bright, and came out on to the porch, she found the merriest party imaginable, and there were generous saucers of cream going round amid "Oh's," and "Ah's" of satisfaction, and Kat following after them with an immense cake, its top s.h.i.+ning white as snow in the moonlight. Bea knew only too well who was the author of all this generosity, and she seized the first opportunity of giving Ralph's hand a squeeze of inexpressible grat.i.tude, to which he made answer by giving her a fraternal pat on the shoulder, as they stood in the shadow of the vine, and whispered slyly:

"Barnett's a trump, isn't he? I never saw anything neater."

Bea thought so and was treasuring up a little speech of thanks to make him when the good-night moment should arrive, but she didn't make it, for that moment turned out to be something so different from what she expected. It was this way. After having reduced the cake and lemonade to a state of bankruptcy, and made way with all the ice-cream, the young people strolled around the yard for a while in the moonlight, took rides in the Water-Rat across the pond, and then decided that it was time to go home, and began making their parting thanks accordingly; so that in a few moments every one was gone but Dr. Barnett and his sister; and that sister, with feminine quickness, understood that this moment might be the very one her brother wanted, so she engaged Kittie and Kat in a lively conversation, and together they all went up stairs for her wrappings.

"It was so kind in you," began Bea when she found that they were quite alone on the porch. "I don't know what I should have done, and it was so terribly mortifying, but then--" and there she came to a pause, for looking up, she met his eyes, wearing an expression, such as chased all further words from her lips, and made her forget entirely what it was that she was going to say next.