The order for the wedding-cake which had been a cause of such tribulation to the girls had come through Mrs. Lennox for a young cousin of her husband’s in whose marriage she was much interested. The order consisted of a bride’s cake, a round wedding-cake, two hundred boxes and in addition some thirty dozen small assorted cakes to be served with the supper. The bride’s mother had given the girls a fruit-cake recipe which had been many years in her family and had asked them to make the cake at least a month before the wedding that it might “age,” as the saying is. Hours easily counting into days had gone into the preparation of the fruit alone for this large order before the work of putting the cake together began; and then to make the twenty loaves, each of which when done resembled in size a two-quart brick of ice-cream, it was necessary to mix and cook the dough in installments. But as Julie told Dr. Ware, that was as child’s play to the intricacies of the frosting and the catastrophe that ensued; and the nervous as well as the physical strain of that, coming on top of all the rest of the work which the order entailed, told severely on the girls, especially Julie, though she was up with Hester at six the next morning packing the boxes into the wooden case which was to take the cake to its destination.
The round loaf over which Julie had expended so much anxious thought was wrapped in sheet after sheet of cotton wadding to protect the elaborate frosting from breaking, and resembled when laid in its box a small-sized snow drift. Hester printed “handle with care” in so many places on the wooden box cover that the expressman when he came could with difficulty distinguish the address; while Bridget cautioned him with such emphasis to carry it “like it wuz a baby, shure,” that the man finally turned on her and asked if she thought he played football with his packages. It was an intense relief to them all when he had carried down the boxes and driven away, though their suspense would not really end until they learned of its safe arrival in the country town twenty miles away. And that they would know that same afternoon, for the mother of the bride had asked them to the wedding and Mrs. Lennox had been most urgent in insisting upon their going out with her, just, as she put it, for a “little country spree.”
Mrs. Lennox had arranged a charming program whereby the girls should be of the party she and Mr. Lennox were to take out on their coach, but as the morning wore on and Julie found each hour’s work more difficult she finally told Hester she felt too tired to consider such an expedition and should remain at home. It was so unusual for Julie to admit fatigue that Hester felt alarmed and attempted to order her immediately to bed, saying she and Bridget could easily get through the rest and she should not go to the wedding without her. But Julie insisted, not only in working on into the afternoon when the orders for the day were at last completed, but in persuading Hester to consent to go to the wedding—a consent reluctantly given, for she was loath to go off without her sister. Having gained it, however, Julie dispatched a note to Mrs. Lennox begging to be excused from the party and turned her attention to helping Hester get ready when their work was done.
Whereas, owing to her delicate constitution, Julie’s fatigue usually showed itself in complete physical exhaustion, Hester’s frequently took the form of intense mental excitement, when the chords of her buoyant nature were strung to their highest pitch. At such times she talked incessantly, laughed immoderately and was so restless that Julie always threatened to tie a string to her. She was in such a mood this afternoon, laughing and capering about, performing such ridiculous antics that Peter Snooks, who aided and abetted these moods, was barking with joy while Julie despaired of ever getting her clothed, not to mention restoring her to her right mind.
“You are a darling to help me but I don’t love you at all for making me go when you are too ill to budge. I’ve a good notion not to mind you, anyway! Why should I? I’m bigger ’an you!” dancing about on her toes to increase her height, which possibly measured some two inches more than her sister’s.
Julie caught her on the fly and thrust a dress skirt over her head, hooking it together without loss of time. “I’m going to have a nice quiet rest with Daddy,” she said, “and will be all right when you come home. I want to hear all about the wedding and whether the cake got there and everything, so do go, there’s a dear girl, and you’ll have a beautiful drive and a good time into the bargain.”
“And feel like a pig because you are not there. That will be pleasant, won’t it! Is that the doorbell? Do peek out the window like a dear and see if the coach is there.”
Julie did as she was requested and reported the arrival of the coach just as Bridget appeared and announced that Mrs. Lennox had sent Mr. Landor up to ask if she were ready.
“Do you suppose he is going?” whispered Hester. “Oh! Julie dear, can’t you go in and see him?”
“Not much! Here are your gloves and have you got a handkerchief? Can’t find one? Never mind, here is one of mine. Now run along and kiss Daddy and hurry—it is dreadful to keep people waiting. You look as fresh as a lark but don’t talk yourself black in the face,” admonishingly. “Remember ‘silence is golden,’” she called out when she had recovered her breath from Hester’s parting hug.