“Mrs. Dorrance, my sisters would think it a great privilege to dress up and be in the picture, so to speak. I can help them get ready. And Dick does some carving at school. Could he make a few little tiny shoes? Oh, how would a few fixed up with little pin-cushions inside do?”
“Fine, Betty!” said Chet. “Mother, with all these girls, I think you can fold your hands. They’ll have so many ideas that all you will need to do will be to engage a policeman to manage the crowds around the booth. Put your prices low enough and the ten cent store can go out of business!”
Betty and Chet exchanged glances, merry ones. Chet was a dear, and getting to be as funny as Ted! It was all fixed up about Doris, and Amy Lou, too! How she would love it!
It was another extra, to take time, of course, but Mrs. Lee was interested and promised to help with the costumes. There was plenty of time, for it was to be an outdoor affair, if possible, though that plan might change if there were a rainy week or so, as sometimes happened.
The birthday party, too, was three weeks away from the day Jack asked Betty to attend. That was something to anticipate. Meantime there was a “junior picnic” on a bright spring day. The athletes of the group employed that as a hike, to count on their points, but it was a limited party this time, gotten up by about twenty junior boys, with as many girls as their guests. Jack invited Betty; and one of the teachers of athletics among the girls went along as chaperon.
As none of the senior boys Betty knew could attend this picnic, there was no embarrassment for her in Jack’s friendly attentions. That young man, too, seemed to realize that he must change his attitude and be friendly to the other girls as well. He “could not have been nicer,” Betty reported to Doris at home when she told about their fun and the camp fire and the boating on the river. “‘No canoes,’ Doris, our chaperon said, but we went to that picnic place, you know where they have a little launch. So if there was a pretty good current in the river, we were safe enough. I’m glad it’s Friday, for I’m simply dead after all the walking we did. It wasn’t so far from the street car, but we tramped around in the woods, hunting flowers and listening to the birds. It was a wonderful day for birds. Jack doesn’t care for hiking, he told me, especially since he has his new roadster; and he says that on the ‘next picnic’ he’s going to take me in it, though I’m sure that I’d rather go with a whole machine full, to be jollier and not to let Jack think it’s very—special, you know, Doris. But he was great today, just as nice as can be to all the girls. I think they will have a different opinion of him now. Lucia’s being so pleasant to him makes a difference, too. She said when a lot of us were sitting around eating lunch, that her mother used to know Jack’s mother when they were girls, just what she told me. And she did the introducing to several girls instead of me, as it happened.”
So the busy days whirled by. There was a girls’ swimming meet for which Betty had been preparing, though that was only fun. And it happened that Mr. Lee’s “little fish” or “mermaid” won more honors for her school, attempting more difficult feats than in her sophomore year. Betty was working now, also, on the life-saving tests, of practical importance, her father told her, though she must be “fit” and ready for them.
One more occurrence that deeply interested Betty Lee happened before the birthday party. It was on Saturday afternoon, when Mr. Lee had come home from the closed office and sat at his desk, for which there was no good place except the living room. He was figuring away at something and looked annoyed when the bell rang. “Mother, I simply must have another spot for his desk,” he said whimsically, as with a resigned expression he jumped up and answered the bell himself.
“You shall, my dear,” replied his wife, as he disappeared into the hallway. Betty and Mrs. Lee were in the dining room, a little back from the double doors, or rather draped opening which separated the living room from the dining room. The dining table was spread with papers and covered with scraps from the “rag-bag” except where half a dozen tiny wooden shoes stood ready to be filled with the small pin-cushions which Mrs. Lee and Betty were making. Betty was enjoying it. It was so nice to have an afternoon at home just to “fiddle around” and do what you felt like doing. This wasn’t work!
But from where Betty sat, she had a good look at a gentleman whom her father was ushering into the front room. Or was he a gentleman? Betty had a momentary impression of a very ordinary looking man, dark, fairly well-dressed but not well set up, as Betty thought. His shoulders were a little stooped and he gave a furtive look through the curtains that fell at the side of the open doorway.