CHAPTER XIII
HIDE-AND-SEEK
AND so the days danced on, each one happier than the last, and all too short for the amount of fun that had to be crammed into them. Wheeling, walking, boating, bathing, fishing, and crabbing were favorite amusements; but best of all the girls loved to play some rollicking, frolicking game that called forth peals of laughter which had no cause save sheer gladness of living.
“Let’s play hide-and-seek,” said Betty, one morning.
“All right,” said Jessie, loyally but lazily. “You go and hide and cry ‘Coop!’ and we’ll all come and find you.”
“No, I don’t mean that baby way; I mean a nice new way. I’ve invented it myself just now, and it’s gay.”
“Elucidate further,” said Marjorie, looking up from her work, which was the combing of Timmy Loo’s silvery tangled curls.
“It’s a gorgeous game,” went on Betty, “but it’s not adapted to or for dogs. If the nondescript mop in your lap goes by that name he’ll have to be buried before we can proceed.”
“Buried indeed! my own, my only Timmy Loo!” cried Marjorie, caressing the moppy mass in question. “Not that, not that, I pray you; but, if really necessary, I could secrete him with a kind neighbor until your wild project has fizzled out.”
“Well, listen, then,” said Betty. “We all hide, you know, and find each other one by one, and then the one who stays hidden longest gets a prize.”
“Beautiful—beautiful,” sighed Marguerite; “but what is the prize? Might it be worth winning?”
“The prize can be that photograph I took of you girls in your bathing-suits,” said Hester. “I’ll never be able to get another as good, and it’s so funny it’s worth having.”
“So it is,” cried Nan. “I’d love to have it. But you vowed you were going to keep it yourself, Hester.”
“I know; but I’m so noble I offer it freely in this noble cause. Besides, I may win it.”
“Sure enough,” cried Betty; “now let’s begin. Dispose of Timmy Loo, Marjorie, and then all come into the Grotto.”
“Rosie,” called Marjorie, “won’t you please take this valuable and high-bred morsel of caninity over to Mrs. Warburton’s? And then you may go for a run on the beach. ’Twill do you good, and besides we want to use the whole of this palatial residence for a while.”
Rosie departed, beaming as usual, and the girls went into the parlor, and Betty closed the door.
“Now,” said she, “we first draw lots for the seeker.”
This ceremony was gone through with, and the lot fell upon Helen.
“I’m glad of it,” said she. “I’d far rather hunt than hide.”
“Next,” said Betty, “the rest of us must draw these numbered papers, and—well, draw, then I’ll tell you.”
Each took a folded paper, and Millicent’s proved to be number one.
“Then you go first,” said Betty; “we’ll give you two minutes by Helen’s watch. In that time you must have hidden yourself either in this house or about its large and spacious grounds. No fair going off the premises.”
Millicent departed on tiptoe, closing the door after her, and Betty continued:
“I’m second; so when the two minutes are up, I go and hide, and you allow me also two minutes in which to tuck myself away. Then so on until all are gone but our Helen, our pride and joy. After the last two minutes she starts to hunt, and the first one she finds goes with her to hunt the others; and so on, you know, until all are found but one, who is, of course, the lucky owner of Hester’s masterpiece of photographic art.”
The two minutes passed, and Betty went to hide. Then the others, one by one, until at last Helen was ready to start on her hunting expedition.
“They wouldn’t be so babyish as to hide behind doors,” she thought, as she looked behind several. “However, it’s best to be systematic. I’ll open every door I see.”
Acting on this plan, she opened the door of the sideboard as she passed that old-fashioned and roomy piece of furniture, and, to her surprise, there was the chubby Marguerite squeezed in between two shelves.
“Oh, help me out!” she cried. “I’m nearly dead.”
It was a close fit, but Helen pulled her out, and together they continued the search.
“Some one would be sure to hide in the kitchen,” declared the canny Matron, so they explored the cupboards there. And, as might have been expected, away back behind some pots and pans was Hester, who looked angrily at her discoverers.
“I thought I had such a good place,” she said, crawling out. “How ever did you find me?”
“Come on,” cried Helen; “it’s getting to be more fun; let’s find the others.”
“Let’s get some buns and milk first,” said Marguerite; “I’m fearfully hungry, and the sight of the cake-box maddens me.”
So the three sat down to a light repast, and as they fell to chatting they quite forgot the game and the other players thereof.
“Well, you’re a nice lot!” said Marjorie, suddenly appearing from the cellar. “I hid in the coal-bin, and I’m sure you never would have found me; but when I heard you talking up here, I thought you had found all the rest.”
“Never mind,” said Hester; “you’re on our side now. Come on; let’s dig up the others.”
Nan was easily found, as she had climbed out her bedroom window and was calmly sitting on the roof, gazing at the sea.
“You needn’t have hurried on my account,” she said; “I’d just as lief sit here all day.”
Jessie was discovered next, standing in a wardrobe among a lot of dresses, which she had fondly hoped would conceal her. And they would have done so, save that her head showed above them, and her feet below.
Then the six began to hunt for Betty and Millicent.
It was really a hunt, for they looked in every likely place and a great many unlikely ones without success. They went downstairs and out of doors, only to return and search from cellar to attic.
At last Jessie, who was peering through the dim, dusty recesses of the low-ceiled attic, saw an old trunk, and, throwing it open, found Betty, cramped and aching, but game to the last.
“ ‘Oh, the mistletoe bough. Oh, the mistletoe bough,’ ” sang Jessie, as she helped Betty out.
“Am I the last?” cried Betty, looking at the girls, who came trooping up to see her hiding-place.
“No; Millicent is still missing,” said Marjorie.
“Then she gets the picture,” said Betty, looking disappointed, “and I wanted it.”
“Never mind, Peeler,” said Hester; “I’ll take another for you, and it will be just as jolly.”
Then they hunted for Millicent. But no trace of her could be found.
“She’s been shpirited away, I’m thinkin’,” said Rosie, who had returned and was much startled at what she thought an alarming disappearance.
“Let’s get Timmy Loo and see if he can’t find her,” said Marjorie, after they had called and yelled and begged Millicent to come to them.
“Yes; set the bloodhound on her track,” said Nan.
So Timmy Loo was brought home, and each girl told him what he was to do, and showed him Millicent’s shoes and gloves and dresses until the poor little dog was quite bewildered.
But he finally understood, and with a bound he sprang upon Marjorie’s bed, which, by the way, was covered with clean shirt-waists and stiffly starched skirts just home from the laundry.
“Oh, Tim, get off those clothes!” cried Marjorie; but Tim only danced around on them and barked.
Then he flew to the pillows, and, though much tangled up in the frills of one of Jessie’s clean aprons, he burrowed until he disclosed some tangled curls and a tortoise-shell comb.
“There she is!” cried Marjorie; and, flinging back the counterpane, they saw a flushed, rosy face.
“I’ve been asleep,” said Millicent, yawning and stretching. “What do you girls want? Oh, I was hiding, wasn’t I? Well, I hid in such a nice place I inadvertently took a nap, and I’ve had lovely dreams.”
“Get up,” cried Betty; “you’re spoiling all the clean clothes, and—you’ve won the prize.”
“Have I? Goody! And I haven’t hurt the clothes a bit. Tim did, though, and he woke me up jumping on me.”
Then Millicent slid out of the bed, did up her hair, and was led downstairs in triumph to receive her prize.
It was presented by Betty, “because,” as she said, “I came next nearest to getting it, and so I ought to have the melancholy pleasure of handing it over to me hated rival.”
The presentation speech, and the grandiloquent thanks expressed by the recipient, caused such hilarity that Aunt Molly came running over to hear the fun. Then they told her all about the game, and as she was such an appreciative listener, they told her much more, until suddenly Betty cried out:
“Oh, see that queer-looking person; I believe she’s coming here!”
All looked and beheld a tall, imperious-looking lady, garbed in eccentric fashion, stalking toward them at a rapid gait. Her bonnet was elaborately decked with high feathers, which nodded and bobbed in unison with her quick, jerky footsteps, and over an old-fashioned black silk gown she wore a rich lace mantilla.
“Why, it’s Mrs. Lennox,” said Aunt Molly, rising. “I dare say she’s coming to call on me. Excuse me, girlies; I must run home.”
“Let us go with you,” cried Marjorie; “I’m sure you’ll need protection from that warlike Amazon. I wouldn’t dare face her alone.”
“I’ll call you over if I feel timid,” returned Aunt Molly, who was already half-way down the steps.
Sure enough, the stranger turned in at Aunt Molly’s gate, and marched up the walk as if she were storming a citadel.
“Jiminy crickets!” whispered Betty, “what can she be? She’s too distinguished for a book-agent and too excited for a plain every-day caller.”
“She’s Zenobia,” said Millicent, “returned to earth in disguise. I think she’s collecting a regiment and wants us to join it.”
“She’s Minerva in modern clothes,” said Betty, “and she wants Aunt Molly to take her to board.”
“Not she,” said Hester; “she’s no summer boarder. I think she’s a dowager countess with several castles of her own.”
By this time they were all watching the old lady, who was evidently telling Aunt Molly a fearful tale of woe, for she gesticulated angrily; and though the girls could not hear her words, they gazed at her bobbing feathers and her clenched hands in sympathy with her trouble, whatever it might be.
Suddenly Aunt Molly called out: “Come over here, girlies; I want you.”
Over flew the Octave helter-skelter; but they stood up politely enough while Aunt Molly introduced them to her guest.
“Dear Mrs. Lennox,” continued Aunt Molly, “is in a sad dilemma. Only yesterday—but I will ask her to tell you about it herself.”
“Yes, I will tell you,” cried Mrs. Lennox, fairly glaring at the flock of girls, who fell in an expectant group at her feet, “for the tale ought to be blazoned abroad to the four winds of heaven! Gratitude, thou’rt but an empty name! Respect, honor, deference? Chimeras all—chimeras all!”
The girls sat enthralled, though Millicent with difficulty restrained herself from replying to the old lady in kind.
“We are told,” went on Mrs. Lennox, waving her hand dramatically, “that this is a free country! No greater, graver misstatement was ever made. We are slaves!” And she shook her clenched fist at Nan, who chanced to be nearest her, with such a belligerent air that the poor Poet feared she was responsible for the national bondage.
“Slaves!” continued Mrs. Lennox, warming to her subject and waving both arms about. “Slaves to our servants! The time has come when they rule us; they dictate to us; they make the laws and we obey them!”
“Yes’m,” murmured Helen, who thought the ensuing pause ought to be filled somehow.
“And now what have my servants done?” she cried, looking from one young face to another, but too engrossed to notice the various expressions of mirth or bewilderment on each.
As no one was in a position to reply, she continued:
“What have they done? They have left me! Departed, one and all, with no word of warning, no cause for offense.”
“Why did they go?” inquired Betty, who liked to know reasons for things.
“Alas! James, my butler, obtained a fine position in a large hotel in the city, and, viper that he is, he must needs tell all the others of it, and one and all, from the head cook down to the footman, ungratefully left my kind service and followed James to the unknown, untried hardships of a city hotel.”
“But you can get a new set of servants,” said Aunt Molly, soothingly.
“Of course I can,” cried Mrs. Lennox, bristling up as if her dignity had been menaced. “Of course I can! Hosts of the best servants in the country are only awaiting an opportunity to come to my service. But it takes time to procure and install a new lot, and here is the culmination of my dismay. But now I received a telegram bidding me expect Lady Pendered and her daughter to-morrow, to remain with me overnight. Ah, my dear friend, you do not know Lady Pendered, but she represents the very flower of the British aristocracy. Her fair daughter Lucy is a sweet gem of purest ray serene, and they have never known what it was to have less than twenty servants at their finger-ends. And my James was such a paragon of a butler! Alas, alas! how sharper than a servant’s tooth—no, a thankless tooth—ah, well, the quotation has slipped my memory for the moment, but I will recall it anon.”
“When are your English friends coming?” asked Aunt Molly.
“To-morrow afternoon,” replied Mrs. Lennox; “and oh, how it would have pleased me were I but able to offer them such hospitality as ’tis in my heart to give! They can remain with me but twenty-four hours, and then they will speed away to publish broadcast the news that Miranda Lennox has no establishment save one old colored woman and a good-for-nothing boy. For those, alas! are all I can find in this howling wilderness of a sea-shore town.”
“Girls,” was all Aunt Molly said, but she looked volumes of meaning out of her kind, clever eyes.
Marjorie was first to understand and respond.
“Of course we can,” she cried, “can’t we, girls? It would be the jolliest sort of a lark, and a ‘helping hand’ besides.”
“We could,” said Betty, “but—”
“But me no buts,” cried Hester. “We can and we will!”
“Vote!” exclaimed Marjorie. “Shall we or sha’n’t we? All in favor, aye!”
“Aye!” yelled the eight; and so quickly was it all done that Mrs. Lennox still wore a look of frightened bewilderment when Marjorie began:
“My dear Mrs. Lennox, you want accomplished and experienced servants to permit you to entertain your friends properly. We claim to be such, and we offer you our services with the greatest pleasure, the only condition being that you take the whole eight.”