“What is it you want me to do?” she asked, and he replied:
“I shall get some women to clean up the house, and some one to cook for us. I did think of getting old Polly,—father’s nurse, you know,—but she has broken her hip, and none of the other Morris darkies want to come, so I must have some one else, and if you will overlook them a little and keep them going, and—and—if I could put up some cots in the ball-room, it would seem more like a picnic. Are you willing?”
He was smoothing Mrs. Stannard’s hair and caressing her arm, while he waited for her to answer.
“The ball-room is pretty dirty now, and there are twelve windows to wash,” she said, at last.
“Oh, that’s nothing. None of the boys will care if the windows are covered with cobwebs, and I’ll get a woman to clean it up. You shall not be troubled at all. Now give in, like a dear old auntie.”
She gave in as he knew she would, but the deacon objected. Six young fellows sleeping in one room would raise “old Harry” and keep him awake nights, he said, but he was finally overruled, as his wife had been. Hal guaranteed that the “old Harry” should not be raised, and that his guests should go to their cots in their stocking feet, and up the stairs which lead to the ball-room from the outside. Two or three of the steps were broken, but he would get them mended. In fact, he would do all he could to spare his aunt, who was again assured that she was the dearest old auntie in the world and the assurance emphasized with a kiss.
Kenneth did not like the arrangement at all. Six young men of Harry’s stamp coming to “paint the town red” were not desirable neighbors, even if they did go up the outside stairs to bed in their stocking feet. But they were coming. His mother had given her consent, and she went herself to superintend the cleaning of the house and the settling it, as far as Hal wanted it settled. Nothing but chairs, a lounge or two, a dining-room table and one or two smaller tables were necessary, besides the kitchen furniture, he said. The bareness of the rooms would suit them far better than if they were luxuriously furnished. They would not be in them a great deal except at meal-time and possibly evenings. They were going to hunt and fish and row and drive, and perhaps go for a day to Rocky Point, where there were one or two choice spirits like themselves, Hal said. He was very happy in his preparations, which went on rapidly, so that within a week the shut-up house had assumed quite a festive air, with the furniture Hal thought necessary, and the furniture his aunt insisted upon, and some of which was brought from her own house. Among other articles were curtains and rugs and two or three easy chairs, and a mirror which had been her mother’s.
“If that comes back whole I shall be glad,” Kenneth said. “Better leave it where it is?”
“Comes back whole,” his mother repeated. “What kind of folks do you think are coming to smash looking-glasses? They are all gentlemen,—‘first cut,’ Harry says.”
Kenneth laughed. When studying with Dr. Catherin in Rocky Point he had met Hal’s choice spirits, and had heard of a party given by one of them, and that at its close two of the number were on the floor and nearly every dish on the table broken. But he would not tell this to his mother, who seemed rather proud that Hal’s fine friends were coming to visit her, as she seemed to think they were. She had no respect for Hal’s father, but she had a vast amount of respect for the Morris family, and had always looked upon Hal as a little superior to herself, because he belonged to it.