Hilarity Hall/Chapter 4

Marjorie rapped on the table with her iron spoon.

"As none of you seem to offer any suggestions," she went on, as if she had not been interrupted at all, "I will lay down the law. Hester, you 're Stoker. The coal and wood has come. Now see if you can make a fire that shall be worthy of one whom England expects this day to do her duty!"

"Ay, ay!" said Hester, bringing her hand to her temple, palm forward, with the quick, jerky salute of a British marine. "Helen, you and Jessie might set the table; but don't both of you get to singing at once, for you 'll drive us distracted. Millicent, what are you good for, anyway?"

Millicent was putting away the groceries that were piled on the table in the outer kitchen, or buttery, as Hester called it, and she replied:

"Oh, I would ornament any calling; but when I see these candles and kerosene, it makes me just long to fill the lamps and candlesticks, 'cause it's going to get dark pretty soon."

"You 're a wise virgin," said Betty, "and you shall ever be our honored Lamplighter. I suppose I must peel these potatoes. How many, Duchess?"

"Two apiece," replied Marjorie. "We 'll have them mashed, and the steak broiled, and I 'll make coffee, and that's all we 'll have cooked for supper. And now let's set the table. Goodness, Millicent! what are you doing?"

Millicent was standing on the dining-table with a kerosene-can in one hand and a lamp-chimney in the other. The lamp-shade was on her head, and she was with difficulty holding the swinging-lamp still while she filled it.

"Why did n't you take the lamp down?" began Marguerite.

"Who's Lamplighter of this establishment, I'd like to know? This is the only correct and elegant way to fill a swing-lamp. It is a patented way, and recommended by all the crowned heads of Europe, of whom I am one. Now, you see, I set down my can, then my chimney, replace the shade—and there you are!" And Millicent sprang off the table and betook herself and her can to the Grotto.

Many hands make light work, and in half an hour everything was ready. The table was laid, and wonderfully pretty it looked, too; for under Jessie's supervision it had blossomed out into dainty doilies and bits of shining glass and silver.

Seeing no signs of dessert, Helen had run over to the grocer's and returned triumphantly with a basket of fruit, a box of candied ginger, an Edam cheese, and a tin box of biscuits. The fruit she arranged as a centerpiece, and the coffee-cups she placed on a side-table, and surveyed the result with a very pardonable pride. In the kitchen, too, all was in readiness.

Betty had boiled and mashed the potatoes until Millicent declared they looked like cotton batting.

Marjorie had broiled the steak to the proverbial turn, and made a potful of her celebrated coffee; and now, blushing with success and Hester's fire, she sat on the edge of the kitchen table, her iron spoon still in her hand, like a scepter.

"I do wish Nan and the Matron would come," she said, "I am so starved." And in a few minutes they did come, tired and chilled with their long walk, and without the much-desired Irish lady.

"Where's your captive? "Could n't you catch her?"

"Is she coming?"

"Yes," said Marguerite; "it's all right. Don't all talk at once. Let me tell you. She can't come until to-morrow, but she 'll be here early—before breakfast."

"Then we 've got to wash the dishes to-night, have n't we?" groaned Jessie.

"Never mind, my pretty scullery-maid," said Betty; "you need n't do it—we can put them away with neatness and despatch." And Jessie beamed again.

"Is supper ready?" said Nan. "I'm slowly but surely starving."

"Yes," chimed a chorus, and in less time than it takes to tell it, the feast was on the table.

"You sit at the head, Duchess," said Betty, "and I 'll sit at the foot and carve, for none of the rest of you know how. The fair scullery-maid can sit at my right hand, in case I need her assistance; Nan and Daisy next; then Millicent, at Marjorie's right, and then Helen and Hester; and there you are!"

There they were indeed, and a merrier crowd never sat down to feast.

"We have n't any pastry," said Helen, when it was time for dessert. "I thought ripe fruit would do as well."

"Yes, indeed," said Marjorie. "I love pears—oh!" And simultaneously Betty made a wry face and left the table.

"What is the matter?"

"Ugh! the fruit is all kerosene."

The luckless Lamplighter looked up at the swinging-lamp, and, sure enough, it was still dripping.

"I must have put in too much oil," said she, calmly, scrutinizing it with interest, "and it—it overflew."

"I should think it did," wailed Jessie, looking at her pretty centerpiece spotted with drops of oil.

"It won't hurt it any," said Millicent. "I 'll wash it for you myself. Is there any more fruit?"

But there was not; so Marjorie poured coffee, and the red-coated cheese was placed before Betty, who thoroughly enjoyed "scooping," and there was much laughter and merry talk. And they all complimented one another and congratulated one another; and they feasted and jested, and laughed and chaffed. And as they all talked at once, each made jokes that never were heard, and told stories that never were listened to, and asked questions that never were answered. And Timmy Loo thought it was all a great entertainment for his especial benefit; and he barked his funniest barks, and ran round the table like mad, and paused in front of each one, standing up and putting out his paw in his very best beggarly manner, receiving always a bit of ginger or biscuit on his solicitous little nose—until, finally, Marjorie said:

"Now, sisters, if there's any redding up to be done, 't were well 't were done quickly. I don't mind washing the dishes, and if we all fly round, we 'll have things in order in no time."

They did fly round, and in very little more than no time things were in order, and the eight girls, feeling very proud of their tidy kitchen, gathered round Hester's wood fire in the Grotto, as Millicent persisted in calling the parlor. And then Uncle Ned and Aunt Molly came over to call, and were nearly talked to death by the enthusiastic eight, who were delighted to have some one to "tell things to."

The much-amused guests were escorted out to the kitchen to see how beautifully the young housekeepers had "redded up," and then they were invited to partake of crackers and cheese in the dining-room. And such a hospitable spirit pervaded the hostesses that they refreshed themselves also, until the crackers were all gone and the cheese required deep-sea scooping.

"Well, you certainly seem a capable crowd," said Aunt Molly, as she was taking leave. "Are you sure you won't be afraid to-night?"

"Of course they won't," said Uncle Ned, in tones that would have inspired confidence in a lame rabbit. "What is there to be afraid of? Blue Beach is the safest old place in the world. But, my lambs, if you want us at any hour of the day or night, you 've only to push this bell in the hall, which communicates with our bell, and we 'll fly over."

"Now," said Matron Marguerite, as they returned to the Grotto, "I am going to make up my accounts. I have all the bills that came in to-day, and I have five dollars apiece from each one of you for the first week, though I'm afraid it won't be enough, and Helen forgot to give me hers anyway, and Betty gave hers to me and then borrowed it back again, and I have n't paid my own yet, either; but I paid out eighty cents for our stage-fares, and twenty-five cents expressage,—no, fifty,—and fourteen cents for two quarts of milk. You see, I did n't know we were going to have bills, and I almost wish we had n't. Oh, yes, and I owe Marjorie thirty-six cents that she paid to the butter-and-egg lady—I mean the club owes it. But I guess I can straighten it all out."

"You ought to have one of those smart cash-registers," said Millicent. "You just play on it with your fingers, and it rings a bell and counts your money for you."

"I wish I had one," said Marguerite, who was beginning to be mathematically bewildered. "But I 'll be all right if you girls will let me alone."

"We will, we will," said Hester. "Just remember, Daisy dear, that two and two are four, and then go ahead. Now I'm going to begin our Journal. I brought a grand and elegant new blank-book for the purpose. We must write something in it every day, and we 'll keep it here on the table, where any one can write a page when she feels disposed. What shall we call it? What's the name of this cottage, Marjorie?"

"Oh, father calls it Fair View, but I don't think that's much of a name. Let's christen it it for ourselves."

"Call it Liberty Hall," said Jessie, "because we 're going to do just as we like all the time we 're here."

"Too hackneyed," returned Betty. "Let's call it Hilarity Hall, because we are going to have lots of fun while we 're here."

So Hilarity Hall it was, and Hester printed it in big letters on the fly-leaf of her book. Then she began to scribble, and the others leaned over her shoulder and knelt at her side and helped and suggested and amended, until the first instalment of the Journal stood thus, and Hester read it aloud amid a fire of running comment:

"Here, you see, it drops into verse:

"Now we come to the account of the 'Truly-Awful Encounter with the Greedy Grocer.'

"If it is n't all quite true, you must remember that we poets must often sacrifice veracity to the demands of poetic diction."

This was agreed to, and Hester read on:

"There; that's as far as I 've written."

"Give it to me," said Millicent. "I'm no poet, but I 'll write the account of our late social function."

So she scribbled, reading aloud as she wrote:

"Why, this book is going to be fine!" said Betty. "What shall we call it? Just the 'Journal'?"

"No; let's call it 'Annals of Hilarity Hall,’" said Nan. "What are annals?" "I don't know, but they 're things they always have in a quiet neighborhood."

All agreed to the title, and "Annals of Hilarity Hall" was scrawled across the cover of the book in artistically uncertain characters.

"Now, my lambs, you must go to bed," said the Matron, ruffling up her halo and looking very sleepy. "What time do we rise, Duchess?"

"Oh, whenever we unanimously agree to; we 'll all call one another. Where are your candles, Lamplighter?"

"On the hall table." And, sure enough, there stood eight candles, burning in a heterogeneous assortment of candlesticks. Helen grasped her banjo and began to play a lullaby.

"Put up the book, Poet, and come along."

But Nan was adding a final verse, though her sleepy audience would not wait to hear: