THE INTERMEDIATE BIRTHDAY PARTY
“
There are Leonora and David and Patricia, to start with,” began Polly, “and Elsie Meyer and Brida McCarthy and Cornelius O’Shaughnessy.”
Mrs. Dudley, writing down the names, smiled her sanction.
“I want to invite as many of the girls at school as I can,” Polly went on thoughtfully, “Lilith Brooks and Betty Thurston anyway—oh, and Hilda Breese! I must have Hilda. She is a new scholar, but such a dear! How many does that make?”
“Eight girls, with you, and two boys.”
“Only three more girls!” mused Polly anxiously. “I can’t leave out Aimée Gentil, and I meant to ask Mabel Camp and Mary Pender.” She paused.
“That just makes it.” Her mother’s pencil was waiting.
“But I don’t know what to do,” Polly sighed. “There’s Gladys Osborne, I ought to invite her. She’s Betty’s intimate friend, and I’m afraid she’ll feel hurt to be skipped. And Ilga!” She drew another sigh.
“Ilga Barron?”
Polly nodded, her forehead wrinkled over the problem. “She has been good to me lately, and she’ll expect an invitation. Still Mabel and Mary don’t have half the fun that Ilga has, and I want them. Oh, dear, having parties is hard work!”
Mrs. Dudley smiled sympathetically, but offered no direct assistance.
“Suppose we leave the girls, and take up the boys. Then we can come back, and things may look clearer.”
“All right.” Polly welcomed a respite from the struggle between loyalty to her old hospital friends and duty to her new acquaintances.
The second list was soon complete, with former patients of the convalescent ward outnumbering the others.
“I want Otto Kriloff and Moses Cohn and those boys to have a good time for once,” Polly unnecessarily explained, and then turned to the matter which had been dropped.
“I think I’ll have Aimée and Gladys and Ilga,” she at length decided. And so the names went down.
“I will write the invitations this evening,” promised Mrs. Dudley; but in less than an hour came Mrs. Jocelyn with a proposal which precluded all previous arrangements and more pleasantly solved Polly’s difficult problem.
“Leonora and I are in a quandary,” began the little lady who was used to having her own way, “and we hope you will help us out. With Polly’s birthday coming on the eighteenth and Leonora’s on the twentieth, and we planning for separate parties, it is strange I didn’t think of it sooner. Probably it wouldn’t have occurred to me now, only that the invitation list has been giving us no end of bother.”
Mrs. Dudley and Polly smiled appreciatively to each other.
“We reached the end of it,” Mrs. Jocelyn continued, “long before Leonora was through choosing, and she was distressed at thought of leaving out so many. It is all nonsense, this restricting the number of guests to the years; but if it must be so I think we had better combine. Then we can double the list, and nobody will have to be invited twice. Polly and Leonora ought to be satisfied with forty-four friends—no, forty-two besides themselves,” she amended, with a twinkle in her gray eyes.
The girls eagerly awaited Mrs. Dudley’s reply.
“That would be very pleasant,” she began; “but—”
“There isn’t a single but to it,” laughed the little lady comfortably. “We will have the party at my house, two parties in one, on the nineteenth.”
“Oh! that will be a between birthday party, won’t it?” piped Polly delightedly.
“We will call it just that,” agreed Mrs. Jocelyn.
Plans were making progress when the Doctor came in, and Polly watched his face anxiously as he listened. She knew the signs.
“I don’t quite like this arrangement,” he objected frankly. “We have intended to make Polly’s party a very simple little affair, without fuss or ceremony. You, of course, will wish things different.”
“Now, see here, Dr. Robert Dudley,” broke in Mrs. Jocelyn, laughingly, “I’m not going to allow any such insinuations. It shall be bread and butter and cookies for tea, if you wish; but you are not going to spoil our good time. Just look at those children! They are worrying their hearts out for fear you won’t let them play hostess together.”
At that, the disturbed faces broadened into smiles, and presently the Doctor asked Polly if she had shown Leonora the new paper dolls that Burton Leonard’s mother had sent her. Which delicate hint told her that the elder people preferred to discuss the matter alone.
It was finally settled according to Mrs. Jocelyn’s mind, as Leonora had felt sure it would be.
“Mother always makes things go her way,” she declared, “and it is a beautiful way, too!”
When it came to deciding on the guests, all was harmonious, even when Polly submitted the name of Ilga Barron, to whom Leonora had felt a strong dislike since her first day at school.
“But you can have her if you want her,” she conceded. “I only hope she won’t spoil the party.”
Polly had the same secret hope, mingled with not a little fear; but she kept silent regarding it, only saying:—
“She has been pleasant lately, and I don’t want to snub her just as she’s growing good.”
On the afternoon of Polly’s birthday, the school furnace needed immediate repair, and the session came to an early close. It had been arranged for Polly to ride home with Leonora; but as the carriage was not there they took a trolley car, Leonora not being yet quite strong enough for so long a walk.
Polly was the first to spy it, the fairy-like automobile, all white and gold, in front of Mrs. Jocelyn’s house. The girls, excited with wonder, walked slowly past the beautiful little car.
“It must belong to somebody’s fairy godmother,” laughed Leonora.
“Or to Titania,” added Polly. “It is pretty enough to be hers.”
“Whose do you really s’pose it is?” queried Leonora, loitering at the side entrance for another look.
But Polly had not even a suggestion beyond the fairy queen.
“Let’s hurry up and find out!” she cried. And they raced round to the back door.
Barbara, one of the maids, showed plain dismay when she saw them.
“Stay here, here in this room!” she commanded excitedly.
“I want to see mother,” objected Leonora.
“No, no!” replied Barbara, with unheard-of severity. “She got vis’tors.”
“Did they come in that lovely car? Oh, do tell us that!” Leonora wheedled.
Barbara hesitated, looking from one to the other.
“Please!” coaxed Polly.
“Yes,” she finally admitted, “they come in it. But I not tell more.” She shut her lips tightly.
Tilly, the cook, slipped outside, and after a while returned with the word that the girls could go where they chose. They were quick to use the permission; but, as Polly surmised, the little car was gone.
Mrs. Jocelyn only smiled unsatisfactory answers to their eager questions, and they wondered much what it all could mean.
Soon after tea Polly was sent home in the coach, with a box of eleven long-stemmed superb pink roses, a birthday present from Leonora. She ran into the living-room to show them to her father and mother, but stopped just inside the threshold, staring at the corner where a low bookcase had stood. There, shining with newness, she saw a handsome upright piano.
“Why, father,” she cried, “what made you do it? You said you couldn’t afford one just yet, and I could have waited as well as not!”
Dr. Dudley smiled down into her eager face.
“I didn’t,” he answered. “We were as much surprised as you are. Read that!” pointing to a card tilted against the music rack.
She snatched the bit of white.
To Polly, with all the love and happy birthday wishes that can be packed into a piano.
From her friend,
Juliet P. Jocelyn.
Polly drew a long breath of joy.
“Isn’t it lovely!” she beamed.
The next minute her fingers were racing over the keys in a musical little waltz.
Early the next morning came David with a “Little Colonel” book for Polly.
“I didn’t know whether to bring it over yesterday or not,” he laughed; “but I finally thought I’d better wait for the intermediate day.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” returned Polly, fingering the book admiringly. “Thank you ever and ever so much! I’ve wanted to know more about the ‘Little Colonel.’ But what kind of a day did you call it?”
“Intermediate,” he replied. “Isn’t that right?”
“Of course,” she assured him promptly, always secretly marveling at David’s ability to use words with which she was unfamiliar. “It sounds beautiful.”
“It means halfway between, I think,” he explained; “so I thought it was an appropriate word.”
“It is,” declared Polly, “a great deal better than just between. It makes it seem more important.”
David laughed, and then, spying the piano, admired Polly’s new instrument to her full satisfaction, and ended by sitting down and singing a little song which she called “another birthday present.”
Shortly before two o’clock the birthday guests began to arrive at Mrs. Jocelyn’s beautiful home. The two mothers, one in white and the other in gray, and the two girls, dressed exactly alike in soft white wool, with pink sashes and ribbons, received informally in the east drawing-room, and when the girls and boys were all there Mrs. Dudley started a game.
They were in the midst of the fun, when Polly, glancing at Ilga Barron, was troubled to see an ugly scowl. The children were in a circle, alternate girls and boys, secretly passing a ring from hand to hand, and it chanced that Ilga had a place between Otto Kriloff and Cornelius O’Shaughnessy.
“Oh, if she makes a fuss!” thought Polly, and straightway the charm of the game vanished.
Ilga’s face grew black and ominous. Suddenly, with a scornful “I guess I won’t play any more!” she dropped the hands she held, and, with head high, walked mincingly over to the window, and stood with her back to the others.
“What’s the matter?” broke from several mouths and showed in every face—every face but Polly’s. Polly knew, or thought she knew.
“We’ll keep right on,” she said in a soft, tense voice; and the play proceeded, yet not as before.
Wondering glances were continually cast towards the window, where the yellow-clad figure stood dark against the light. The Senator’s daughter received more attention than the ring.
Meantime Ilga grew tired of waiting for the game to end, and, with a furtive look in the direction of the players, she sauntered off towards the hallway.
At once Polly excused herself, and followed.
Ilga turned quickly.
“I’m going home,” she said.
“Oh, please don’t!” cried Polly, adding faintly, “Are you ill?”
“No; but I guess I’d better go. There’s such a rabble here.”
“Why, Ilga!” gasped Polly.
“Well, ’tis!” she retorted. “If mamma’d known it, she wouldn’t have let me come; she’s very particular who I play with.”
“They’re just as nice as they can be,” protested Polly in a soft, grieved voice.
“Perhaps they seem so to you. I s’pose that’s the kind they have at hospitals. The little Pole over there, he squeezed my fingers so they ’most ache yet, and that tall Irish kid with the red hair is the worst of the bunch!”
“Oh, Ilga, he’s a splendid boy, and so brave! I’m sure Otto didn’t mean to hurt you; he is kind as can be.”
“It’s all right, if you want them; but I guess I’ll go home. I thought there’d be something besides just games.”
She turned towards the staircase, yet lingered.
“I’m sorry you don’t like it,” Polly replied simply. “I’ll play anything you wish.”
“No, I’m going.”
She tossed her head, and took a step upward.
Polly was in terror lest somebody should overhear, for Ilga’s voice was sharp with excitement.
“I’ll stay and play with the school boys and girls,” the dissatisfied guest yielded.
“But I can’t separate them,” Polly protested in dismay.
“Then I’ll go home,” Ilga decided, and went slowly up the stairs.
Polly followed sadly, but presently returned, having given over to her mother the care of the Senator’s daughter.
Leonora ran to meet her. “What is the matter?” she whispered.
“I know!” spoke up Cornelius. “She don’t like the crowd. I had to hear what she said about me. Say, Polly, I’ll get out, if that’ll make her stay.”
“You shan’t!” Polly’s eyes flashed. Then they brimmed with tears. “I want you, Cornelius—I want you all! I wouldn’t have you go for anything! Come, let’s play—what shall we play? You choose, Cornelius!”
The game was moving pleasantly along when the Barron coach stopped at the door. For a few minutes the interest of the players flagged; then, having seen Ilga whirled out of sight, a festive spirit fell upon all, and the play went on more merrily than before.
Game followed game, and mirth was high, when Elsie Meyer, out for a forfeit, suddenly cried:—
“Oh, me! oh, my! the fairies have come!”
This was enough to halt the others, and the glimpse of a white-and-gold automobile drew the little crowd to the front windows.
Wonder and delight were on the children’s faces, as they watched the motorists alight. The dapper man and the slight little woman were given small attention, for in the car were two of the tiniest, dearest midgets that anybody had ever seen. As soon as it was known that they were actually coming into the house, the excitement was great.
“Do you s’pose they’re real fairies?” questioned Brida McCarthy eagerly.
Nobody could answer. In fact, just at the moment, words were scarce. Interest was centred on the visitors that were coming up the front steps. The glimpses of the beautiful little creatures as they passed the curtained doorway increased the children’s curiosity, and, during the brief time devoted to the removal of wraps, tongues ran lively. The wild surmises came to a sudden halt when the tiny boy and girl appeared bowing and curtsying, being presented to the company as “Their Royal Highnesses, Prince Lucio and Princess Chiara.”
The brother and sister at once proceeded to give a unique performance in song, dance, and pantomime, until the young guests were beside themselves with delight.
After this entertainment came the wonderful party tea, arranged and served in Mrs. Jocelyn’s happiest style, with eleven little candle-girls atop of the birthday cake, and ice cream in the form of fairies.
When everybody was stuffed with good things, the dainty Prince and Princess remained for an hour to play with the other children, “just like real folks,” as Elsie Meyer declared.
The last game of hide-and-seek came to a merry end, with the finding of the roguish little Princess, who was only eighteen inches tall, curled up snugly back of a small flower pot, inside of a jardiniere. Then the girls and boys bade good-bye to their royal companions, and the guests were all sent home in the beautiful Jocelyn carriage. The stately grays had to make a good many trips before the Intermediate Birthday Party was really over; but the last load was finally driven away, jubilant voices sounding back through the dusk after the children had passed from sight.
“It was just lovely, from beginning to end,” breathed Leonora.
Ilga Barron was quite forgotten.