It was a pretty good party. Right at first it wasn't much because the girls sat on one side of the room and tried to keep their white dresses from getting wrinkled, and the boys sat on the other side. It wouldn't have been any fun at all, that first part, only Swatty had brought some beans in his pocket and we had some fun shooting them at the girls with our thumbs. Every once in a while Bony's mother would come in from the kitchen and clap her hands and say:
“Come, now! We must all have a good time! All you boys and girls think of a game and play it. Bony”—only she called him Harold—“I'm surprised you don't start a game!”
So then Bony wished he hadn't come to his party. So after a while Bony's mother said to the cook:
“Well, Maggie, we'd better give them the refreshments now, instead of later; they won't liven up until they are fed.”
We went into the dining-room and all sat round the big table, and we began to have a good time. Us kids would get up and sneak round and steal a girl's cake or something, and she would holler and be mad; and then we started in to pull their hair-bows, and maybe their hair a little, and they would slap at us and scold and giggle. They pretended they didn't like it; but they did. So pretty soon some of them got up and chased us round the table, and after the ice cream it turned out we were playing tag; and Bony's mother said:
“Heaven save the furniture! But, anyway, I'm glad they've waked up!”
Well, I didn't pull Mamie Little's hair, or anything. I guess I wanted to, but I sort of didn't dare. All she did was to make a face at me once across the table, and when I threw a little piece of cake at her she brushed it off her dress and said:
“I consider that very rude!”
So then we went into the parlor again and got to playing kissing games—Copenhagen and post-office, and games like that. So then we played pillow. I guess the girls like it because there isn't so much game and there is more kissing, and I guess the boys don't care because by the time you get to playing pillow they're used to it. You take a sofa pillow and drop it in front of the girl you want to kiss and drop on your knees, and she drops on her knees and then she kisses you. Then she takes the pillow and drops it in front of the fellow she wants to kiss next, and she kneels on it, and she kisses him. So I guess Kate White dropped the pillow in front of me and kissed me; and then I took the pillow and looked round the row of chairs.
I saw Mamie Little and she looked as if she was trying to look as if she didn't want me to drop the pillow in front of her, but really did want me to. I didn't know what to do. Toady Williams was in the next chair to Mamie Little. I guess maybe I wanted Mamie Little to kiss me, but I was sort of scared to put the pillow in front of her. I got sort of hot. So, all of a sudden, I dropped the pillow right in front of her and plumped down on my knees. Everybody laughed and clapped their hands, except Toady Williams.