After supper, Jack brought out his violin, and he and Gretta played some duets together, Gretta reading the piano part at sight, and so well that Winnie felt her own poor little talent cast quite in the shade.
Then Gretta played some pretty sonatinas with fine taste and expression, and gave so much pleasure to her listeners that Fannie began to think there might be worse things in the world than being a "music teacher's daughter."
After that, to the great delight of the girls, Mr. Burton sang, in his fine bass voice, and with the merry twinkle in his eyes in accord with his extravagant gestures, a comic song, ending with a little refrain in which all the Burtons, not even excepting Ralph, joined, the latter singing at the top of his voice, and clapping his hands for accompaniment.
They had hardly had time to feel weary of sitting still and listening, when Mrs. Burton had them all in the dining-room playing the good old game of "Puss in the Corner." Here, too, Mr. Burton distinguished himself by his pathetic appeals for a "corner." The game left them all breathless but happy, and they sat down for awhile to recover themselves and "cool off," while Jack went to get on his overcoat preparatory to seeing the girls home.
CHAPTER VI.
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY.
The school which Winnie and her friends attended was in the habit of selecting certain authors, whose birthday anniversaries they commemorated. This year, however, the principal had concluded to celebrate Washington's birthday by patriotic songs, declamations, and so on. In consequence the pupils were all in a state of great excitement, pleasurable to boyish and girlish hearts.
Lessons were shortened, classes dismissed early, rehearsals conducted morning, noon and night. From one end of the building to the other, "spouting" was heard, gestures were being made in the most frantic manner, the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner," "America," and "The Red, White and Blue" rose upon the air; and, as the crowds of boys and girls passed to and from school, their conversation contained allusions to "The Father of our Country," or the fine way in which Harry or Tom or Frank gave that declamation, or the sweetness of Mabel Gray's voice, or why Mr. Bowen hadn't selected Clarence instead of Bob, etc., etc., etc., until all the air around the school-house must have been as heavily charged with patriotism as the air around Lexington on the morning of that memorable battle which, too, was talked of, for there had been much "brushing up" of United States history.
The memorable day of the 21st of February arrived (there being no school on the 22d), and found the rooms finely decorated with flags and swords and battle relics, portraits of George and Martha Washington, and flowers and living plants, while the blackboards were entirely filled with ornamental scrolls containing patriotic mottoes.