“Oh, Jackie!” she pleaded, and suddenly she caught Jacqueline’s hands and clung to them. “Can’t you wait just a little longer—only till to-morrow night? I won’t ask anything more, Jackie—I won’t even ask God for anything more—and I’ll give up the piano—and your lovely clothes—I haven’t hurt ’em, I’ve been awful careful—and I won’t cry one little bit, even if there are cows at the farm—and I’ve been so happy here—I didn’t know things could be so lovely—I didn’t know people could be so happy—oh, it will be like a beautiful dream, all the rest of my life—only let me have to-morrow, Jackie—please, please let me have to-morrow!”
“Ouch!” said Jacqueline. “Stop digging your finger nails into my hands!”
Caroline didn’t seem to hear her. She clung like a limpet.
“Only wait till to-morrow!” she sobbed.
“Now you needn’t think,” snapped Jacqueline, “that I’m going to hoof it three miles back to that nasty old farm, and sleep in that hot, stuffy room. What’s the dif. anyway between to-night and to-morrow, I should like to know?”
“But it’s my party,” wailed Caroline. “To-morrow is my party.”
Jacqueline snorted. Don’t blame her too much! She had had a birthday party every year of her life, and a Hallowe’en party, and an Easter-egg rolling, and a Washington’s Birthday party, besides always a group of children to eat ice-cream and see the fireworks at Buena Vista on the Fourth.
“What’s a party?” she said, with contempt that was quite sincere. No party, she felt, could give Caroline sufficient pleasure to counterbalance the discomfort she herself must suffer, if she had to go back to the farm now—with her tail between her legs, as she put it!—and face Aunt Martha.
“There are seven girls coming,” Caroline panted out the details between her sobs. “I almost know Eleanor Trowbridge next door—we smile at each other always—and the table is to be out here in the garden—and the ice-cream is coming from Boston on the train. Oh, Jackie, shapes of ice-cream like flowers—the sort you see sometimes in windows—red roses and green leaves and everything—I picked ’em out myself! And there are little cakes, like frogs and white m-mice—with almonds for ears! And we’re going to have a peanut-hunt—and prizes—such scrumptious prizes—silver bangles, and the cunningest little bottles of perfume, and dear little carved Italian boxes with pictures in the covers. Oh, Jackie, it’s like ten Christmases all come together—and I—I never had a party before in all my life.”
She let go of Jacqueline then. She had to use her hands to hide her face.