Bright pink spots burned on Hilary’s cheeks as she hurried around to get everything ready. Then she began to draw one package after another out of the birthday box. First came a flat paper box, which contained some acceptable little gifts for the sixteen-year-old daughter. Within the tissue paper lay some bright hair ribbons, a pair of kid gloves, a dainty handkerchief and some fragrant sachets made by June from satin ribbon. These were admired by the girls who stood or sat near, but they were much more interested in the rest of the contents. A birthday letter Hilary slipped into her belt to read presently.
“Look, girls, the big box in the middle has the chicken, I know!” Hilary lifted the lid and disclosed tempting pieces of fried chicken well wrapped in oiled paper. “Please take them out, Isabel, and arrange on some of the wooden plates, on a paper napkin, you know.”
“How many chickens do you suppose your mother cooked? Here’s nothing but breast and second joints and nice things.”
“They’re having chicken pie on the remains,” said Hilary laughing. “Here’s some of June’s famous salad, two quart cans,—and do you like blackberry jelly, Avalon? Good, two glasses. That is all I was afraid of that there wouldn’t be enough of the little things for the crowd. But Mother knew little Hilary!”
A big birthday cake, candles in a box; nut bread; pimento and cheese sandwiches; country butter; fresh rolls, home-made; a package of June’s fudge and “divinity”; cream candies, made with fondant; a large candy box of blanched almonds and hickory nut meats; olives and fine home-made pickles, all came in quick succession from that still famous box. In the corners and around about were tucked oranges and red and golden apples. The girls shook every scrap of paper for fear they might miss something. “And everything so wonderfully packed!” they exclaimed. As the table was not large enough to hold it all, the cake and other goodies for dessert were carried into the other room and the top of the dresser cleared to hold them.
“I feel like a little piggy-hog,” sighed Isabel, looking at the table full of good things.
“Help yourselves,” said Hilary, turning to the book-shelves and then passing a box of chocolates which had reposed there, having arrived from Aunt Hilary that morning.
“One chocolate and a pickle is my limit,” Avalon decided, and turned her back on the table to enjoy those delicacies. “We must save our appetites for the chicken. We can buy candy, but where can we ever get chicken like that?” Avalon, long over her homesickness, was almost as full of life as Isabel.
“Now for the cocoa, Avalon,—I’ll help.” Cathalina’s housewifely instincts supplied what experience lacked and she found that she liked to fuss around after this fashion.
Then the guests began to arrive. Diane Percy, Helen Paget, Lilian North, Betty Barnes, Grace Barnard, Eloise Winthrop and two newer friends, Juliet Howe and Pauline Tracy, came in, one or two at a time. Juliet and Pauline, like Hilary, were “out” for basketball. Both were active, athletic girls. Pauline, known as “Polly”, was a plump, rather solid looking girl, with round cheeks, full, pleasant mouth, quantities of long black hair, steady grey eyes, and strong, capable looking hands, equally efficient for basketball, tennis, and rowing, or for driving, and cooking for hungry cowboys on the ranch from which she came. “She can do even more than Hilary, Betty says,” wrote Cathalina to her mother. Cathalina had never met a girl just like Pauline, and was much interested in everything about her. Juliet was known as Polly’s Shadow, partly because of their intimacy. She was almost Polly’s twin in complexion, hair and eyes, but was tall and thin, with long, slender face. Swiftness and general activity were her particular recommendations for basketball.