“Know them? I should say that I do,” Bertha laughingly replied. And then she ran right up to one of them, and, shaking her finger at him, she exclaimed: “Aha, Bob Angel, now I know why you wanted to borrow my red silk handkerchief.”
Then the other girls, their fear changed to laughter, trooped out of the cabin.
“Jack Doring and Bob Angel!” Betty Burd exclaimed. “I never would have known you boys in a hundred years.”
“We-all heard you wanted some waiters,” Bob drawled, trying to talk in negro dialect, “and we-all came to apply.”
“Well, you-all are engaged,” laughed Bertha, “and now please do hustle.”
Then every one bustled about. The boys made a long table with boards and sawhorses, and benches on each side were fashioned with boxes and more boards. Soon the tables were covered with flower-bordered paper table-cloths, and there were napkins to match. Two bowls of daisies and buttercups and ferns adorned the ends of the table, and in the very center was placed a huge birthday cake, which Mrs. Doring had made for Adele. It was frosted with white, and on it were thirteen pink candy roses, for Eva and Adele that day were both thirteen.
Mrs. Drexel had sent chicken salad, and the girls themselves had made lettuce sandwiches, which were piled in tempting array. Rastus, as they called Bob Angel, was just filling the last tumbler with pink lemonade when Rosamond Wright exclaimed, “Here comes Adele!”
There was a chorus of delighted exclamations from the orphans as they approached.
“I didn’t know a table could look so beautiful,” Amanda whispered to Eva, as Adele motioned them to their places. Soon the festive board was surrounded with laughing, happy faces, and then Bob and Jack, as black as burnt cork could make them, greatly added to the merriment with their antics. They wore small white aprons, and each had a folded towel flung over one arm. They passed things with a flourish and talked a string of nonsense, trying, with more or less success, to imitate the negro dialect.
The heaps of delicious sandwiches disappeared rapidly, the pink lemonade was often replenished, and never before had a chicken salad been more appreciated.