“Something Japanese,” answered Roberta promptly. She was the only one of the clan who read the newspapers. “Every one is interested in Japan now, and it will be new here, too.”
“The Merry Hearts” approved this suggestion, and as the lights were going out in the halls, Mary summarily appointed Roberta costume and decoration committee, Madeline, Katherine and the B’s committee on “stunts,” Helen and Nita committee on general arrangements, and Betty and Rachel committee to see the matron about using the parlors, and the registrar about permission to give the entertainment and a date for holding it. Then the meeting adjourned at a run, for the Belden House matron had taken a sudden fancy for walking through the upper halls on the stroke of ten.
The matron gave her consent at once. The registrar hesitated a little, but when she found that “The Merry Hearts” could get on with only four days for preparation, and when she had read the list of members, all of whom but Betty and Babe were among Harding’s very best students, she, too, consented, and furthermore bought ten ten-cent admission tickets, paying for them with a bill that made Betty fairly dance with delight.
Everything else went on in the same pleasant fashion. The costume committee was flooded with offers of real Japanese kimonos and a bewildering collection of fans, screens, silk scarfs, pottery, and china for decorating. Two days before the fête, Madeline had a letter from her father, in which he spoke of a bewitching little Japanese lady, herself an artist, who was sitting as model for a friend of his. Madeline consulted the rest of her committee and sent off a long telegram (charges collect), asking for the loan of the Japanese lady for the afternoon of the tea. The answer was favorable, and the committee on arrangements missed their luncheon in order to make an entirely new set of posters. From that moment the success of the tea was assured.
But if the Japanese lady’s tea-making and flower arranging were the drawing cards, there were plenty of other attractions. Admission tickets gave the guests entry to the house parlors, where the Japanese lady and four excellent American imitations, arrayed in genuine kimonos, dispensed tea and wafers, and made themselves as entertaining as possible while they described the surpassing charms of the “side-shows” to be found further down the hall. The three girls who had rooms on the ground floor had generously contributed the use of their quarters. In one a Japanese soothsayer told fortunes in delicious broken English. In another a worker of magic made flowers grow, and produced strange sleight-of-hand effects with swords, coins and little paper balloons. But decidedly the star performance of the afternoon was the third “side-show,” a Japanese one-act play. This was Madeline’s idea. The rest of the “stunt” committee had been very doubtful about the wisdom of attempting it, and they were amazed and delighted when it proved to be the success of the afternoon. To begin with, Madeline had aroused their doubts by being so mysterious about the play. When Babe asked where she got it and what it was about, she answered that she “had it,” and that it was like a good many other plays,—about nothing in particular. She was definite, however, about one thing. There were two characters, and she would play one and Roberta the other. When Roberta flatly refused to take part, Madeline reminded her that she had not yet “paid up” for the loan of Georgia Ames, and calmly appointed an hour for the first rehearsal.
“But we haven’t looked at our parts,” Roberta protested. “There’s no time to learn them either. You must give up the play, Madeline; it’s impossible to have it on such short notice.”
IT CERTAINLY WAS NOT ENGLISH
“Come over this afternoon, and if you can’t learn your part perfectly in ten minutes we’ll give it up,” Madeline promised, and the committee, knowing that Roberta learned slowly, supposed that would be the end of the matter. But after the first rehearsal Roberta was as enthusiastic as Madeline, and the rest of the committee, sure that their combined tastes might be trusted, neither interfered nor asked troublesome questions.