Then Mrs. Harris came to the rescue. “Where be they crackers, Miss Lavinia?” she demanded, and Miss Lavinia, opening the cupboard door, brought out two gay boxes with twelve beautiful crackers lying closely and shinily side by side.
First each girl was given one and pulled it with the boy sitting near her, and they all screwed up their eyes and there were little cries of fright when the pop came. By the time the boys were given their crackers all the children were out of their places, jumping up and down with excitement, proudly wearing paper bonnets with frills, and three-cornered caps, and paper aprons whose strings would never meet round any waist.
Miss Lavinia’s nervousness suddenly passed. “Shoo!” she said as though they were so many chickens. “Run back to the school-room.”
She clapped her hands and they surged along the passage laughing, jumping, poking one another; a boisterous band of happy children for whom tea and the crackers had broken the ice.
First of all they would play “Hunt the Slipper,” and therefore they must all sit in a ring.
“Mammy said not to sit on the floor,” whispered Ruthie to Tommy.
“Sit down,” said Tommy scornfully. Ruthie sat, and the game began.
The slipper went round and round and round. It was thrown across, and up and back again, and Jimmy Prynne, outside the circle, grabbed and missed and snatched again. There was much confusion, and no one quite knew what anyone else was doing, or what they themselves were meant to do, but it was a grand game, and in the merry laughter no-one joined more heartily than Miss Lavinia herself.
Next came “Nuts and May,” and “Blind Man’s Buff.” The blind man always guessed the wrong number of fingers held up, and yet managed to see just quite a little either above or below the handkerchief that smelled so sweetly of lavender and had belonged to Miss Lavinia’s father years and years ago.