It so happened that no man had the pin that he had brought to the entertainment, and of course no girl had hers, for she would insist that the man take the pin she had provided. As many of these pins were the quaintest ones to be found by the persons bringing them, they created not a little amusement.
But we are getting ahead of our story, for before supper the time was filled in with various games.
The first of these was an entertainment in which all the guests took part. A fancy tray contained as many slips of cardboard as there were guests. This was placed on the centre-table, and the hostess called upon one of the men to pick up one of these slips at random, and read what it contained. He did so and read: "The tale of a pin." The hostess then informed him that he must tell the story of a pin, and do it in two minutes. The surprise was so great that he scarcely recovered enough to begin his story before his time was up. Then he had to call on some girl, and she must take a slip, and do whatever it bade her, for the period of two minutes. And so on until all had taken part. Some of the slips read thus:
- Speak a piece with something in it about a pin.
- Name twenty-five kinds of pins.
- Tell a story about a girl and a pin.
- Give an oration on points.
- Give a talk on pinfeathers.
- Improvise a poem on "The boy and the pin."
- Point out the various pins you can see in this room.
- Tell twenty uses for a hairpin.
- Sew with a pin. With this was given a piece of cheese-cloth and a pin with a long thread tied to the head.
- Count the pins in a heap. (All sizes and kinds.)
- Make a pin stand on its head.
- Draw a picture of a pin. (Breastpin of huge pattern.)
Play a game of "ring pins." This was a variation of the game of quoits or ring toss. Into a foot square piece of soft pine had been stuck twenty pins about an inch apart. The victim was given ten small brass rings, and made to stand two feet from the edge of the table, and see how many rings he could make catch over a pin.
P.O.D. DINNER PARTY
On the twenty-second day of February the guests were bidden to a P.O.D. (Post-Office Department) dinner party, but none guessed the meaning of the mysterious letters till they were seated at the table and found that the place-cards were unsealed envelopes stamped and directed, each one containing a tin label similar to the ones upon the sacks used in the Railway Mail Service. These had been made by a tinsmith and were only strips of tin three inches long and an inch and a half wide. The sides had been bent over slightly to form a slot to hold a narrow piece of cardboard, and a blue or a pink ribbon was drawn through a small hole punched in one end.
The ladies' slips bore the names of small towns near by, while those of the gentlemen had the titles of the railroads on which the towns were situated.
The table was decorated with toy trains and stagecoaches and men on horseback, all loaded with tiny mail-sacks filled with salted nuts, candies, and even little cakes. The guests had great fun guiding the various conveyances around the table and peering into the small sacks.
After dinner the host stood in the dining-room door and would allow no couple to pass who were not able to show perfectly matched slides.