“On Thanksgiving night,” said Betty, and then she told him what kind of a party it was to be.
“Gay!” exclaimed Stub. “Of course I’ll get up a rig. Sweet little sister will help me, and I’ll be a regular Miles Standish or somebody like that. May I wear a cloak, I mean a golfcapey thing? I think they wore those in Puritan days, with a dinky white collar, like Fauntleroy’s only without lace on it.”
“Good for you, Stub!” cried Betty. “You have just the right ideas! Can’t you help the other boys,—if they need help?”
“Sure! I’ll get them all together, and if they don’t learn quickly enough, I’ll be a dressmaker to ’em. And I’ll help you fix your show, Betty. You ought to have strings of red peppers and onions hung across overhead.”
“Oh, do help me, Stub! Won’t you and Agnes come over in the morning, and help me do those things? Oh, won’t we have fun!”
After that it was easy. Very few of the girls they invited made any objection to wearing the Puritan costume, and if the boys objected, as some did, they were referred to Stub Graham, who soon changed their minds for them.
“It’s going to be perfectly beautiful, Mother!” said Betty, as, after dinner that evening, she sat on a low stool at her mother’s side.
This was Betty’s favorite position, for, though a big girl, she loved to cuddle against her mother and caress her pretty hand, or play with the laces and ribbons of her dainty gown. And now, in their beautiful drawing-room at Denniston, they sat before the big open fire, while Betty told about the party.
Jack, who lounged in a big chair on the other side of the fireplace, was greatly interested. To Betty’s surprise he was entirely willing to wear a Puritan costume, though he observed, incidentally, he’d rather dress as an Indian, and Indians were quite as appropriate to the period as Puritans.
“But they didn’t attend the Thanksgiving feasts,” said Betty; “they lurked in the ambushes; so if you want to do that, all right.”