At four o’clock one guest was among those present, Janice Jennings, a Northern child sojourning at the Bella Vista with a gay grandmother while her parents were being divorced.
“Grammer said I could come for a while but I can’t eat any refreshments,” she announced with sincere regret. “My stummick is upset. She sent for your popper and he said I dassent eat any sweet stuff for a week. Lookit!” She produced, as evidence, an unpleasant tongue.
Pert, sharp with the brittle wisdom of a hotel child, she inspected games and food and favors, contrasting them frankly with more opulent affairs in her native Pittsburg, and when it seemed certain that no one else was coming she retrieved her hat and wrap.
“No fun playing games with just us two,” she said, candidly, “and as long as I can’t eat I’d rather sit on the hotel porch and listen to the ladies talking. They tell about who’s trying to get married, and who’s getting divorced, like my mother and father, and about babies coming, and if I keep awful still they don’t tell me to run away and play like a good girl.”
On departure, shaking hands primly and assuring them that she’d had a perfectly lovely time, shrill mirth laid hold on her.
“Oh, golly,” she giggled, “you know what it makes me think of?
‘Smarty had a party,
And nobody came,
And Smarty ate all the jelly-cake
And nearly died with the stummick ache!’