BETTINA GIVES A PORCH PARTY
"I'M so glad that you girls have come, for I've been longing to show you the porch ever since Bob and I put on the finishing touches."
"O Bettina, it's lovely!" cried all the guests in a chorus. "But weren't you awfully extravagant?"
"Wait till I tell you. Perhaps I ought not to give myself away, but I am prouder of our little economies than of anything else; we've had such fun over them. This is some old wicker furniture that Mother had in her attic, all but this chair, that came from Aunt Nell's. Bob mended it very carefully, and then enameled it this dull green color. I have been busy with these cretonne hangings and cushions for a long time, and we have been coaxing along the flowers in our hanging baskets and our window boxes for days and days, so that they would make a good impression on our first porch guests. Bob made the flower boxes himself and enameled them to go with the furniture. This high wicker flower box was a wedding gift, and so was the wicker reading lamp. This matting rug is new, but I must admit that we bought nothing else except this drop-leaf table, which I have been wanting for a long time. You see it will make a good serving table, and then we expect to eat on it in warm weather."
"What are we to make today, Bettina? The invitation has made us all curious.
"'The porch is cool as cool can be,
So come on Thursday just at three,
To stay awhile and sew
On something useful, strong, and neat,
Which, with your help, will quite complete
Bettina's bungalow!'"
"What about the little sketches of knives and forks and spoons in the corners?"
"Bob did that. He wrote the verse, too, or I'm afraid I should have telephoned. Are we all here? Wait a minute."
And Bettina wheeled out her tea-cart, on which, among trailing nasturtiums, were mysterious packages wrapped in fringed green tissue paper.
"What is in them? Silver cases—cut and ready to be made! Oh, how cunning! Shall we label them, too? What is the card?