Part 10 (1/2)
novels. There was a good-hearted lady, so disastrously given to expressing enthusiasm by embracing anyone within her reach that the heroes and heroines of the evening fought shy of her, and Tom made her well-known tendency an excuse for withdrawing altogether and going out to the fence behind the building where he could overlook the festive scene and smoke a cigar surrept.i.tiously. Not least ”among those present”
was the ubiquitous reporter for the _Courier_, biting his pencil and using abbreviations in his notes with such freedom that the list of gifts, when finally published, contained such startling entries as: _Eliza and her Germ Garden_, and _The Victorious Anthropology_.
”I felt as though I were in a dream half the time,” sighed Polly, when the crowd had dwindled to ”the immediate mourners” as Max put it, and these were sitting wearily at the messy little tables, dipping idle spoons into the melted cream that had been with difficulty saved for them. ”I kept on smiling and explaining and telling people to go to Catherine for cards and to Bertha to leave their gifts, and half the time I didn't know what I was saying or who was talking to me. Bert came up once and asked me to tell him which door he came in at, and I tried to find out for him, before I tumbled--before I saw the point, I mean. I never was so exhausted in all my life.”
”Poor Algernon,” said Tom. ”You're just beginning your work. Every one of those hundred and sixty-seven cards will be in to-morrow to draw out a book. You ought to keep open for a week every day.”
”Three times a week, with evenings, will be enough,” replied A.
Swinburne, librarian. ”There's a big job on those books that came in to-night. How many were there finally, Bertha?”
”Ninety-six. About twenty are worth putting labels on,” answered Bertha cheerfully. ”I'm a little inclined to think that that part of our plan was a mistake.”
”I don't believe it,” said Dot. ”There was one old duck who brought a German primer, and he strutted around as though he owned the place. I'm sure he'll use it constantly.”
”He seemed to think he ought to have a card free, because he gave it,”
put in Catherine. ”I remember him! He wasn't the only one, though. They all--or a lot of them--seemed to think they ought to be able to draw any number of books on one card, and they don't like the idea of fines at all. I don't envy you, Algernon!”
”We ought to have called ourselves the Looking For Trouble Club,”
groaned Archie. ”We haven't had a decent Boat Club picnic since we got into this mess. And look at all this place to clean up to-morrow! I'm about dead with work, already. I don't know about the rest of you.”
The rest had strength enough for a chorus of hoots and jeers at ”His Laziness,” who had adorned the scene of their labor for a few minutes now and then, but for the most part had stayed strictly away.
”I've saved your lives, anyway,” declared Archie cheerfully, when their derision had spent itself. ”And I'm going to again. I hired a lovely scrub-lady to come to-morrow and make this spot look s.h.i.+pshape--”
”O, Archie!” cried the girls, ”you beautiful boy!”
”Don't interrupt,” said the beautiful boy sternly. ”I am going to vindicate myself. Polly Osgood, didn't that tennis game Friday morning save you from collapse? How about that little canoe jaunt on the quiet yesterday, Catherine? Bess needed a drive Thursday, and Winifred did more good to the public by singing to me all that hot evening than the rest of you did slaving away over some gooey job or other. Dorcas let me reward her Sunday-school kids by a hay-rack ride, and she went along to take care of us. Agnes and Bertha got interrupted on their way down here one morning, and let themselves be persuaded to take a country walk instead, to show me birds' nests for a course I'm not ever going to take next year. And as for Dot,--O, Dot was shamelessly ready to go off any old time with any old body. But you all would have been nervous wrecks by now without me. And you call me names, like an ungrateful populace!”
It was a mirth-provoking series of revelations. ”Archie has shown himself a most artistic sly-boots,” said Catherine. ”I never had more delicious conscience pangs than I did on that canoe-ride.”
”So it was with me,” declared Polly. ”And I never dared say anything sarcastic about the other girls not turning up every time, because I felt so guilty myself.”
”So did I!” cried Bertha and Agnes together.
”Well, so didn't I!” exclaimed Dot. ”I was perfectly free to say all the time that I didn't intend to spend my whole summer or even ten days of it working harder than I do winters. I move that Archie be given a vote of thanks for introducing the Rest Cure into the Boat Club, and also a vote of admiration for the beauty of his dissimulation.”
”I second the motion,” said Archie himself, ”and amend it to include going home. Want any help in locking up, Al?”
”No, thanks,” said Algernon, hearing for the first time a nickname that any fellow might have had applied to himself. ”Good night, all of you.
I'll take good care of things, you can count on that.”
As the rest drifted in pairs and threes toward their homes, a well-content young man set the reading-chairs in their places, put out the low-burning lamps, turned the key in the lock, and walked briskly away, happier than he had ever been.
Even so early, Catherine's inspiration had shown itself a true one.
CHAPTER SEVEN