The girls laughed as in duty bound, and declared that it would be sport, and wondered if they dared, but Ralph sharply called them to order.
“Rot! As if everybody in this neighbourhood didn’t know Darsie by heart! Put on your hats, and don’t talk rubbish. It will take us all our time to get through with the hall before lunch.”
Town-bred Darsie privately hoped that the motor would appear to carry the helpers to the hall three miles away, but the Percivals themselves never seemed to dream of such a possibility. In short skirts and thick boots they plodded cheerfully across boggy meadows and muddy lanes, climbed half a dozen stiles, and arrived at last in the High Street of the little village, close to the entrance of the unpretentious wooden building which called itself the Village Hall.
Darsie thought that she had never beheld an interior which seemed so thoroughly to need, and at the same time to defy, decoration! Whitewashed walls, well splashed by damp; a double row of pegs all round the walls at a level of some five or six feet from the ground; wooden forms, and a small square platform, made up a whole which was bare and ugly to a degree.
A group of five or six girls stood beside a pile of evergreens; a youth in shirt-sleeves was in process of unpacking crumpled flags and flattened Japanese lanterns from an old tin box; two ladders stood against the walls.
The entrance of “the family” was marked by a general movement among the little company, and Darsie watched the greetings which ensued with twinkling amusement.
Noreen and Ida were so pleasant, so full of gratitude for the presence of each individual helper, so anxious to be assured that they could really spare the time. Ralph was so laboriously polite, while the girls themselves, pleasant, kindly, and well-educated, were either happily unaware of the thinly disguised patronage, or had the good manners to conceal their knowledge. There was no doubt which side appeared to best advantage in the interview!
“The first thing we must do is to decide upon a scheme of decoration,” Ida declared. “Darsie, suggest something! You have never done it before, so your ideas ought to be novel. What can we do to make the hall look pretty and cheerful?”
“Rebuild it!” was Darsie’s instant and daring reply, whereat the farmers’ daughters laughed en masse, and the Percivals looked haughtily displeased.
“Father built it!”