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<h2 id="CHAPTER_20">CHAPTER 20</h2> The Odd Behavior of the Grown-ups Even with all its ingenious though inexpensive improvements, the renovated cottage would probably have failed to satisfy a genuine rent-paying family, but to the contented girls it seemed absolutely perfect. At last, it looked to everybody as if the long-deferred dinner party were actually to take place. There, in readiness, were the girls, the money, the cottage, and Mr. Black, and nothing had happened to Mrs. Bartholomew[206] Crane—who might easily, as Mabel suggested harrowingly, have moved away or died at any moment during the summer. One day, very soon after the cottage was settled, a not-at-all-surprised Mr. Black and a very-much-astonished Mrs. Crane each received a formal invitation to dine under its reshingled roof. Composed by all four, the note was written by Jean, whose writing and spelling all conceded to be better than the combined efforts of the other three. Bettie delivered the notes with her own hand, two days before the event, and on the morning of the party she went a second time to each house to make certain that neither of the expected guests had forgotten the date. "Forget!" exclaimed Mr. Black, standing framed in his own doorway. "My dear little girl, how could I forget, when I've been saving room for that dinner ever since early last spring? Nothing, I assure you, could keep me away or even delay me. I have eaten a very light breakfast, I shall go entirely without luncheon—" "I wouldn't do that," warned Bettie. "You see it's our first dinner party and something might go wrong. The soup might scorch—" "It wouldn't have the heart to," said Mr. Black. "No soup could be so unkind." Of course the cottage was the busiest place imaginable[207] during the days immediately preceding the dinner party. The girls had made elaborate plans and their pockets fairly bulged with lists of things that they were to be sure to remember and not on any account to forget. Then the time came for them to begin to do all the things that they had planned to do, and the cottage hummed like a hive of bees. First the precious seven dollars and a half, swelled by some mysterious process to seven dollars and fifty-seven cents, had to be withdrawn from the bank, the most imposing building in town with its almost oppressive air of formal dignity. The rather diffident girls went in a body to get the money and looked with astonishment at the extra pennies. "That's the interest," explained the cashier, noting with quiet amusement the puzzled faces. "Oh," said Jean, "we've had that in school, but this is the first time we've ever seen any." "We didn't suppose," supplemented Bettie, "that interest was real money. I thought it was something like those x-plus-y things that the boys have in algebra." "Or like mermaids and goddesses," said Mabel. "She means myths," interpreted Marjory. "I see," said the cashier. "Perhaps you like real, tangible interest better than the kind you have in school."[208] "Oh, we do, we do!" cried the four girls. "After this," confided Bettie, "it will be easier to study about." Then, with the money carefully divided into three portions, placed in three separate purses, which in turn were deposited one each in Jean's, Marjory's, and Bettie's pockets, Mabel having flatly declined to burden herself with any such weighty responsibility, the four went to purchase their groceries. The smiling clerks at the various shops confused them a little at first by offering them new brands of breakfast foods with strange, oddly spelled names, but the girls explained patiently at each place that they were giving a dinner party, not a breakfast, and that they wanted nothing but the things on their list. It took time and a great deal of discussion to make so many important purchases, but finally the groceries were all ordered. Next the little housekeepers went to the butcher's to ask for a chicken. "Vat kind of schicken you vant?" asked the stout, impatient German butcher. Jean looked at Bettie, Bettie looked at Marjory, and Marjory, although she knew it was hopeless, looked at Mabel. "Vell?" said the busy butcher, interrogatively. "One to cook—without feathers," gasped Jean.[209] "A spring schicken?" "Is that—is that better than a summer one?" faltered Bettie, cautiously. "You see it's summer now." "Perhaps," suggested Mabel, seized with a bright thought, "an August one—" "Here, Schon," shouted the busy butcher to his assistant, "you pring oudt three-four schicken. You can pick von oudt vile I vaits on dese odder gostomer." "I think," said Jean, indicating one of the fowls John had produced for her inspection, "that that's about the right size. It's so small and smooth that it ought to be tender." "I wouldn't take that one, Miss," cautioned honest John, under his breath, "it looks to me like a little old bantam rooster. Leave it to me and I'll find you a good one." To his credit, John was as good as his word. The little housekeepers felt very important indeed, when, later in the day, a procession of genuine grocery wagons, drawn by flesh-and-blood horses, drew up before the cottage door to deliver all kinds of really-truly parcels. They had not quite escaped the breakfast foods after all, because each consignment of groceries was enriched by several sample packages; enough altogether, the girls declared joyously, to provide a great many noon luncheons. Of course all the parcels had to be unwrapped, admired,[210] and sorted before being carefully arranged in the pantry cupboard, which had never before found itself so bountifully supplied. Then, for a busy half-day, cook books and real cooks were anxiously consulted; for, as Mabel said, it was really surprising to see how many different ways there were to cook even the simplest things. Jean and Bettie were to do the actual cooking. The other two, in elaborately starched caps and aprons of spotless white (provided Mabel, though this seemed doubtful, could keep hers white), were to take turns serving the courses. The first course was to be tomato soup; it came in a can with directions outside and cost fifteen cents, which Mabel considered cheap because of the printed cooking lesson. "If they'd send printed directions with their raw chickens and vegetables," said she, "maybe folks might be able to tell which recipe belonged to which thing." "Well," laughed Marjory, "some cooks don't have to read a whole page before they discover that directions for making plum pudding don't help them to make corned-beef hash. You always forget to look at the top of the page." "Never mind," said Jean, "she found a good recipe for salad dressing." "That's true," said Marjory, "but before you use it you'd better make sure that it isn't a polish for hardwood[211] floors. There, don't throw the book at me, Mabel—I won't say another word." The three mothers and Aunty Jane, grown suddenly astonishingly obliging, not only consented to lend whatever the girls asked for, but actually thrust their belongings upon them to an extent that was almost overwhelming. The same impulse seemed to have seized them all. It puzzled the girls, yet it pleased them too, for it was such a decided novelty to have six parents (even the fathers appeared interested) and one aunt positively vying with one another to aid the young cottagers with their latest plan. The girls could remember a time, not so very far distant, when it was almost hopeless to ask for even such common things as potatoes, not to mention eggs and butter. Now, however, everything was changed. Aunty Jane would provide soup spoons, napkins, and a tablecloth—yes, her very best short one. Marjory could hardly believe her ears, but hastily accepted the cloth lest the offer should be withdrawn. The girls, having set their hearts on using the "Frog that would a-wooing go" plates for the escalloped salmon (to their minds there seemed to be some vague connection between frogs and fishes), were compelled to decline offers of all the fish plates belonging to the four families. The potato salad, garnished with lettuce from the cottage garden, was to be eaten with Mrs. Bennett's best salad forks[212] The roasted chicken was not to be entrusted to the not-always-reliable cottage oven but was to be cooked at the Tuckers' house and carved with Mr. Mapes's best game set. Mrs. Bennett's cook would make a pie—yes, even a difficult lemon pie with a meringue on top, promised Mrs. Bennett. Then there were to be butter beans out of the cottage garden, and sliced cucumbers from the green-grocer's because Mrs. Crane had confessed to a fondness for cucumbers. There was one beet in the garden almost large enough to be eaten; that, too, was to be sacrificed. The dessert had been something of a problem. It had proved so hard to decide this matter that they decided to compromise by adding both pudding and ice cream to the Bennett pie. A brick of ice cream and some little cakes could easily be purchased ready-made from the town caterer, with the change they had left. Thoughts of their money's giving out no longer troubled them, for had not Mabel's surprising father told them that if they ran short they need not hesitate to ask him for any amount within reason? "I declare," said bewildered Mabel, "I can't see what has come over Papa and Mamma. Do I look pale, or anything—as if I might be going to die before very long?" "No," said Marjory, "you certainly don't; but I've wondered if Aunty Jane could be worried about me.[213] I never knew her to be so generous—why, it's getting to be a kind of nuisance! Do you s'pose they're going to insist on doing everything?" "Well," said Bettie, "they've certainly helped us a lot. I don't know why they've done it, but I'm glad they have. You see, we must have everything perfectly beautiful because Mr. Black is rich and is accustomed to good dinners, and Mrs. Crane is poor and never has any very nice ones. If our people keep all their promises, it can't help being a splendid dinner." The three mothers and Aunty Jane and all the fathers did keep their promises. They, too, wanted the dinner to be a success, for they knew, as all the older residents of the little town knew—and as the children themselves might have known if the story had not been so old and their parents had been in the habit of gossiping (which fortunately they were not)—that there was a reason why Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were the last two persons to be invited to a tête-à-tête dinner party. Yet, strangely enough, there was an equally good reason why no one wanted to interfere and why everyone wanted to help. <hr class="chapter" /> [214] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i222.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="321" alt="" />></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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