It is strange how the atmosphere of a home will affect its guests.
Mrs. Spencer was a kind and pleasant lady enough, and yet no sooner were the members of the Jinks Club inside her house, than they suddenly became silent and a little self-conscious. They had an undefined feeling that they must “behave,” and it made them a little stiff and unnatural.
The Maynard house, on the other hand, was like a playground. Once inside those hospitable doors, they felt an unspoken welcome that was homelike and cordial to the last degree.
So they decorously laid off their hats and coats, taking pains to place them neatly on the hatrack or hall table, and then primly seated themselves around the library. King began to fidget; he was always impatient under restraint of any sort. But Marjorie felt more at home in the Spencer house, and, too, she had faith in Miss Hart’s plans, whatever they might be.
Kitty was of an adaptable nature, and didn’t care much what they played. Dorothy was with her, and that was fun of itself.
Soon Miss Hart came in, and her smiling face, and cordial manner, did much to cheer the hearts of the Jinks Club.
“I was so interested in Marjorie’s postcards,” she began, “that I thought you might like to play a postcard game this afternoon. So I’ve arranged it for you. As you see, in this room, and the dining-room, are many postcards pinned to the walls and window-frames, and on tables and mantels. Some are partly hidden, others in plain sight. In every case the printed title is cut off, and each card is numbered. Now, we will go travelling.”
This began to look promising. King glanced around at the postcards, and noticed some attractive-looking parcels tied with ribbons, and decided it was to be a sort of a party. Now, a party was about as much fun as a regular Jinks Club meeting, so his spirits rose to the occasion.
“Here is your luggage,” Miss Hart went on, giving each a pencil and blank card. “Write down the number of any postcard, and write against it what you think it represents. Don’t look at each other’s lists, and the one who has most correct answers will receive a prize. Good-bye, my tourist friends; start now on your travels.”
It was fun. Some of the pictures were impossible to mistake. The Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Bunker Hill Monument were easily recognized. But others were not so well known, and sometimes the tourists had to think hard to remember where some of the buildings or monuments were situated. The scenes were from all over the world; from the Coliseum in Rome to the Flatiron Building in New York; and the Jinks members giggled when they came across a picture of their own town library and the Rockwell Railway Station. It was an absorbing game, and the tourists went about from picture to picture, and then back on their tracks again to try once more to recall some half-forgotten arch or statue.