Mr. Huntington laughed with the rest, but his hand slightly trembled as he slowly lifted the roof of the little pasteboard house. Inside were sixty fudge hearts and a further assurance, “Sixty hearts of sixty girls.”
Could it be possible that there were tears in his eyes to make them glisten suddenly like that? Peggy looked down at her grind to hide the sudden swift seriousness that passed over her own face, when her eyes met something so incredible that she burst into shrieks of laughter. She had prepared most of the grinds with the others, but of course hers had been kept a secret and she had not seen it until this minute. Hers and Katherine’s were in one, being nothing more nor less than two smashed dolls somewhat jumbled up in appearance, one wearing a blue Peter Thompson and the other a red coat. There were black and blue bumps painted on their dented foreheads. Around the waist of the red-coated doll went a ribbon on which was lettered frantically,
“S.O.S., S.O.S.”
And around the blue-dressed one a ribbon declared,
“I’ll save you! I’ll save you.”
The verse that accompanied it went as follows:
“Humpty and Dumpty met on a hill.
Humpty and Dumpty had a great spill.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty or Dumpty together again.”
When full duty had been done to the main dinner the beautiful pumpkin and mince pies that were Katherine Foster’s own effort were brought in with wild cheers to greet them, that not even the pokes and taps and frowns of Mrs. Forest could do anything to check.
“Miss Parsons—” began Mr. Huntington, rising in his place.
“Peggy,” she corrected from the other end of the room.