A Flock of Girls and Boys Part 9

"No."

"Well, _we_ are, and we've lived in Was.h.i.+ngton, too, where everybody has colored eggs, and all the boys and girls there used to go to the egg-rolling party the Monday morning after Easter; and a good many of them go now."

"Egg-rolling party?" cried the boy, with such wide-open eyes of astonishment that Elsie and Marge both burst out laughing, whereat the boy flushed up angrily, and seizing the reins was starting off, when the cook called to him to wait until she had the b.u.t.ter-box ready for him to take back.

"Oh!" whispered Marge, "we've hurt his feelings, Elsie; it is too bad."

Then she ran forward, and said gently: "'Tisn't anything at all strange that you didn't know about the rolling. Elsie and I didn't until we went to Was.h.i.+ngton to live, and saw the game ourselves, and had it explained to us; and I'll explain it to you. We had a lot of eggs boiled hard, and dyed all sorts of pretty flower colors and patterns; and these we took to the top of a little hill near the White House, and each one, or each party, started two or three or more eggs of different colors, and made guesses as to which color would beat. After the game was over, we exchanged the eggs we had, and gave away a good many to the poor children. Oh, it was great fun."

The boy laughed. "Fun! I should call it baby play!" he said derisively.

"Well, _you_ can call it baby play if you like," returned Marge, with great dignity; "but the 'baby play' has come down through a good many years. It is an old Easter custom that was brought over from England by one of the early settlers at Was.h.i.+ngton."

"I--I didn't mean--I'm sorry--" began Royal, stammeringly; when--

"Royal! Royal Purcel!" called out a voice; and a little fellow scarcely more than six or seven years old came running up the driveway, and made a flying leap into the wagon.

"Do you belong to a circus?" cried Elsie.

"No; wish I did. I belong to Royal."

"Who is Royal?"

"Who is Royal?" repeated the child, making a cunning, impudent face at her.

"He means me. My name is Royal,--Royal Purcel; and he," nodding towards the child, "is my brother."

"Royal Purcel! _What_ a funny name! It sounds--"

"Don't, Elsie," remonstrated Marge.

"It sounds just like Royal Purple," giggled Elsie, regardless of her sister's remonstrance.

Rhoda Davis, the cook, coming out just then with the b.u.t.ter-box, Royal thrust it hastily into the back of the wagon, and without another word or glance at the sisters, drove off at a headlong pace.

"Well, I never saw such a tempery boy as that in my life," said Elsie.

"A boy that can't take a joke I don't think is much of a boy."

"Them Purcels allers was pretty peppery, and I guess they're more'n ever so now," said Rhoda.

"Why?" asked Marge.

"Why? Because they used to be the richest farmers about here. They owned pretty nigh all Lime Ridge once. Now they hain't got nothin' but that little Ridge farm. It's a stony little place, and how they manage to get a livin' off of it beats me."

"How'd they happen to lose so much?"

"Oh, the boy's father took to spekerlatin', and then some banks they had money in bust up."

"Well, he needn't fly up at everything because he isn't rich," said Elsie. "That's regular cry-baby fas.h.i.+on. He's a royal purple cry-baby, that's what he is, and I mean to call him that, see if I don't;" and Elsie laughed in high glee as this mischievous idea struck her. And while she and her sister were discussing Royal and his temper, Royal was discussing that very temper with himself.

"To think of my being such a fool as to show mad before those girls. I'm a regular sissy," was his final conclusion as he drove down the road.

The next morning, bright and early, he was up at the Lloyds' with two dozen fine big eggs. "As handsome a lot of eggs as I ever see,"

commented Rhoda, as she took them in.

"Are they going to color them all?" asked Royal.

"I s'pose so. Here are some of their old ones. They've been b'iled as hard as stones. They'll keep forever;" and Rhoda handed out of the open window a little basket of colored eggs.

"But some of these are painted," said the boy, taking up an egg with a pattern of flowers on it.

"No, they ain't; they're jest colored in a dye-pot. Them that looks as if they was painted were tied up in a bit of figgered calico and b'iled, and when they come out of the b'iling they took the calico off, and there was the figgers set on the eggs. See?"

"Yes, I see;" and Royal turned the egg round thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly put it down, and started off towards his wagon on a run.

"Land sakes!" called out Rhoda; "what's come to you all at once to set off like that?"

"Muskrats!" shouted Royal, with a laugh as he jumped into the wagon.

"Ben a-settin' traps for 'em, eh?"

Royal nodded as he went rattling down the driveway.

"Did Royal Purple bring the eggs?" asked Elsie Lloyd, a little later.

"His name ain't Purple; it's Purcel," corrected Rhoda, innocently.

Elsie giggled. "Well, did Royal _Purcel_ bring the eggs?" she asked.

"Yes, there they be."

"Oh, oh! aren't they beauties?"

"They be; that's a fact," agreed Rhoda. "Royal, he's done his best for ye now, anyway. He's kind o' quick, like all the Purcels, but he's real accommodatin'."

"So he is, Rhoda, and I'll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn out for being so 'accommodatin';' and we are going to have some extra pretty ones this time. See this now, and this, and this!" and Elsie whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico. One was a pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.

"The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern," said Marge, enthusiastically.

By Sat.u.r.day afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns were "ready for company," as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on Sat.u.r.day night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three days' visit. It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a box was brought in by one of the servants. It was neatly tied, and directed in a bold round handwriting to "Miss Elsie and Miss Marge Lloyd."

"What _can_ it be?" said Marge, wonderingly.

"We'll open it and see," cried Elsie. And suiting her action to her word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design. On one was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple blossoms. On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,--a palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings, soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub head with a soft halo about it.

"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, "Who _could_ have painted them?" wondered Marge; and, "Who _could_ have sent them?" cried Elsie.

In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor. They could find nothing to give them the slightest clew.