Chapter SIX: Tea at Miss Helen’s

Polly Wiggles and Jeannette looked with pleasure at the two pretty dresses that were spread on the bed in the Forget-me-not room.

“Are we to wear our new dresses this afternoon, Mother?” inquired Jeannette; for the two little girls had been invited by their mother’s old friend, Miss Helen, to take afternoon tea at her attractive white cottage about three quarters of a mile from The Lilacs. Miss Helen Cole was principal of the school at Meadowbrook, and was always planning delightful surprises for the children, so they both were agog with impatience to find out what the “something” was that Miss Helen had whispered she wanted to talk over with them.

“I thought it would be a good time to wear them,” answered Mother, deftly slipping the rose-pink organdie over Wiggles’ curly head as she spoke. “Stand still, child, so I can button you up.”

Jeannette’s daffodil-yellow organdie was fastened next, and big pink-and-yellow butterfly bows were tied to the curly tresses. Then Mother kissed them good-by with a few final words of caution. “_Don’t_ forget to thank Miss Helen for your pleasant afternoon, and _do_ be careful of your frocks.”

The sisters fluttered downstairs with a grown-up air of importance which was increased by Cubby’s wail of “Me wants to go, too.”

“You’re too little,” explained Jeannette kindly, stooping to kiss the rosy face; “and, besides, you are going out with Mother and Grandma in the car.”

“Little bits of wee bears don’t go to afternoon teas,” added Wiggles, wiping away the big tears that slid down Evelyn’s cheeks. “Only big girls and young ladies go to teas, but we’ll tell you all about it when we come home.”

“I are a big, big gurrl,” gulped Cubby, heartbroken at being left behind by her adored sisters.

“Who wants tea, anyway?” inquired Aunt Elsie, coming out of the music-room to find out what all the sobbing was about. “Cubby and I are going to have something much better than old tea,” she told them. “We’re going to have _ice-cream_ while we’re out this afternoon.”

Cubby’s woe-begone face brightened as if by magic, while Aunt Elsie hastily waved the girls out of the front door.

“Skip along before she starts crying again,” she advised them hastily, and hurried back to talk over with the excited wee bear the fascinating possibility of having “choglit” ice-cream, or “striped pink and white.”

“I’m certainly going to be careful to-day,” Wiggles confided earnestly to Jeannette as they skipped along the pretty woodland path that led them to Miss Helen’s. “Mother’s taken so much trouble to make these dresses for us, that I’m going to be very careful about sitting on anything, or falling into anything, or tearing myself on anything, see if I don’t.”

“You do have the worst luck,” Jeannette acknowledged, “like that time we went with Mother to see ‘Cinderella’ at the movies, and you put your good hat on the seat next to us----”

“And a fat woman came and sat plump on it,” giggled Wiggles; “and I was so interested in the picture that I never noticed until after it was over, and then it was as flat as a pancake. Well, you just see this afternoon. I’m going to go home just as clean as when I started.”

Alas, none of us can tell the march of events, and I am afraid if Jeannette and Elizabeth could have foreseen how the afternoon was going to terminate, they would have turned about and run back home again.

Miss Helen greeted the little girls warmly, and soon they were comfortably seated on the wide porch, chattering gayly with Mrs. Cole about the dolls’ bathing-picnic.

“Do you know,” said Miss Helen, “I asked you girls over to-day, especially to find out how you think the school children would enjoy a May-Day frolic, with Maypoles, a May Queen, and all the other pretty old customs?”

“O goody, Miss Helen! Wouldn’t that be lovely,” exclaimed Wiggles and Jet in one voice.

“Only,” added Jeannette sadly, “isn’t it too late? I thought May Day was the first of the month, and to-day is the middle.”

“You’re right, Jeannette,” replied Miss Helen. “It always has been the first of May, but spring comes so late nowadays that the flowers and trees would hardly have been wide enough awake to help us by the first. Then it would have been far too cool to spend a whole day in the meadows wearing thin dresses, so I thought we could choose two weeks from to-day as our official May Day, and be sure of having it warm enough for both little girls and flowers.”

“Would all the school be in it?” inquired Wiggles.

“All the children that wanted to come,” replied Miss Helen. “I thought it might be fun to revive the old custom of May-baskets, and I wondered if you girls would like to help me make some to-day, to use as models to show to the school on Monday morning when I speak about the May frolic.”

“We’d love to,” enthused the children, and Wiggles could not resist spinning around on one toe, “to let off steam.”

“Did you and Mother ever make any when you were little girls?” inquired Jeannette, for Miss Helen and Mother had been schoolmates together at Meadowbrook years before, as Grandmother and Grandfather Carr had spent six or seven months of each year at The Lilacs ever since Mother’s baby days.

“Yes, indeed, Jean and I always hung baskets on the door-knobs for each other. Here are the foundation frames that we will use to make the baskets on.”

Miss Helen and her mother had cut out hundreds of cardboard basket-frames in preparation, and these were to be placed in the corridors of the school, so that the children might take as many as they wished to cover. The work, of course, must be done at home. The teachers had volunteered to make the Maypoles, and each pupil that wished to be on one was to furnish a ribbon, any color desired, and these would be fastened to the poles.

“I want to make a basket for Mother, and Aunt Elsie, and Grandma, Jeannette, Marion, Alice, and Cubby, and--oh, lots more,” chattered Wiggles, checking them off on her fingers.

“Suppose I give you three dozen basket-frames, assorted styles, to take home, and then you can divide with Marion and Alice and get as many more as you wish at any time. How would that do?”

Both little girls agreed that would be splendid, and the basket-making started.

Such beautiful crêpe and tissue papers as Miss Helen had provided for them. All colors of the rainbow were there, as well as many books showing how to make every kind of basket imaginable.

“These books,” Miss Helen told them, “will be on my desk, and may be consulted at any time for ideas. I will furnish basket-frames for all the school, but the tissue paper the children must provide for themselves.”

“There won’t be any trouble filling them,” said Wiggles, as her fingers snipped and folded busily, “for the wild flowers are just thick. All the May flowers are just ready to leave for the season, and all the June blossoms will just be coming in.”

“But we wouldn’t have had many blossoms if we had planned it for the first of May,” said Miss Helen wisely. “These last two weeks have been exceptionally warm, and have just hurried things along. How do you like this?”

“This” was a dainty yellow basket shaped like a daffodil blossom, with fluted petals and tiny touches of green.

“Oh, Miss Helen, how pretty!”

“That is for your mother,” said Miss Helen smiling. “And I am going to hang it myself May Day morning, with a pot of yellow jonquils inside.”

The minutes flew as if by magic. It was such fun to see folds and twists of colored paper suddenly bloom under one’s fingers; and they all had to stop and admire each basket as it was completed. It seemed only a second before Queenie, the colored maid, appeared to tell them that tea was ready.

“Them suah is powahful handsome,” said she, flashing her white teeth in a broad smile at the two little girls, of whom she was very fond.

With reluctant fingers Jeannette laid down her scissors, and Wiggles brushed the snips from her dress.

By the stone wall, under a peach-tree that was covered with fragrant pink blossoms, a dainty little tea-table had been spread, simply inviting hungry little girls to eat. There were the white beaten biscuits at which Queenie excelled, so light you might think they would fly away. Tiny lettuce sandwiches, and marmalade sandwiches, too, and stacks of golden-brown curly “leaf” cookies, smelling pleasantly of spice and other things good, decked each end of the table, while a rosy mound of Polly Wiggles’ favorite “squince” jelly, as she always called it, trembled temptingly on a sparkling glass dish.

Then Queenie, her face all one broad grin, brought in bits of patties, filled to the brim with delicious creamed chicken, and, when these had disappeared to the last flaky crumb, there appeared tall crystal glasses heaped with custard ice-cream that was almost smothered with luscious scarlet strawberries.

It was such fun to eat, with pink peach-blossoms showering petals upon them, and bluebirds and saucy jays screaming at them from near-by trees, attracted by the thought of crumbs.

“I almost forgot to tell you about the choosing of the May King and Queen,” said Miss Helen suddenly, as the little girls nibbled at their cookies and admired the tiny candy-filled May-baskets of apple-blossoms that had been at each place as favors.

Jeannette and Polly Wiggles looked up expectantly.

“We are going to choose them by vote,” continued Miss Helen smiling at the eager faces. “Next Friday each pupil at school will cast two votes, one for King and one for Queen. Then the boy and girl with the greatest number of votes will have the honor of officiating at the May-Day Revels.”

“That’s the only fair way,” agreed Mrs. Cole. “Otherwise there would be bickering and heart-burnings. Will the May-Day Majesties have any attendants?”

“Yes, indeed. The King will choose four attendants,--a Herald and three Couriers. The Couriers will remain with him, and the Herald will ride before the line of march, blowing a trumpet, and announcing the King’s approach.”

“Won’t that look pretty?” cried Jeannette. “Seems as if I could hardly wait.”

“Then,” continued Miss Helen, “the Queen will select four Maids of Honor, and, like Jeannette, I think it will be a very pretty sight. Gracious, can that be thunder, so early in the season?”

It certainly was a distant threatening grumble.

“Seems to me it’s getting dark awfully early,” said Wiggles in much surprise. “Goodness, Jet, it’s six o’clock by Miss Helen’s wrist-watch.”

Miss Helen was much astonished at the lateness of the hour, and reproached herself for not having noticed before the lengthening shadows and far-distant rumble. The little girls had told her upon their arrival that Grandma and Mother, Aunt Elsie and Cubby, had gone with the automobile into the city, and would not be back until dinner-time, so she knew there was no likelihood of James coming for them with the car.

“We didn’t mean to stay so late, but it was ’cause we had such a lovely time,” said Wiggles ingeniously as she kissed Mrs. Cole and Miss Helen good-by, and tucked the bundle of basket-frames under her arm.

“I don’t like to have you two little girls take that long walk through the woods alone,” said Miss Helen in a troubled voice, with a glance at the dark sky.

“We’ll be all right, truly,” smiled Jeannette. “Thunder-storms don’t usually amount to much so early in the spring, and we’ll just scurry along and be home in a twinkling.”

“Don’t take the woodland path,” advised Mrs. Cole, “and then you’ll surely be all right. Go round by the road instead. It’s only half the distance that way, even if it is dusty, and there is no glaring sun to annoy you now. It does look very much like a bad storm to me, but it won’t come yet awhile.”

So with a parting wave of farewell, the sisters ran down the path, kinky black and long brown curls flying as they scampered along.

Now there were two ways of returning to The Lilacs. About five minutes’ walk from Miss Helen’s the road forked, one way leading through the woods, and the other along the highway. The highway was much the shorter route home, for it was the road used by the farmers and truckmen, and was well bordered by farmhouses and barns. The woodland path, by which the children had gone to Miss Helen’s in the early afternoon, was a long three-quarters of a mile, but it was so cool and shady, in contrast to the dusty, glaring highway, that the children greatly preferred it, especially on such a warm day. Now, as they started rapidly down the highway as Mrs. Cole had suggested, Wiggles stopped suddenly.

“Oh, I forgot, Jet; we can’t go this way after all. Don’t you remember that Daddy told us there was a regular epidemic of scarlet fever all along here, and said until he told us differently we couldn’t use any but the woodland path?”

“Sure enough,” said Jeannette, stopping short to wipe her flushed and overheated face. “Goodness, isn’t it dreadfully hot all of a sudden? I had forgotten all about it, Wiggles. I remember now that he said that eight of the houses were quarantined. Isn’t it too bad, for I’m so afraid we’ll get caught in the rain if we take the long way home. Just look at that sky.”

Heavy thunder-caps entirely concealed the blue, and bright flashes of lightning went zigzagging across the heavens, while the low steady rumble of thunder was coming nearer and nearer.

“It does look bad,” said Wiggles, “but it usually takes a long time to blow up, so let’s scurry”; and two pairs of white-stockinged legs went flashing down the narrow path that led into the woods.

How dark it was! The overhanging trees completely shut out the little remaining light, and the path was too narrow for them to run rapidly.

Everything looked so changed. When they had gone through in the early afternoon, straying sunbeams had dappled leaves and tree-trunks with patches of golden light, and the slender white birches nodded and swayed in the gentle breeze. Then they had stopped to admire the huge feathery ferns, and to gather a few delicate wind-flowers that peeped through the grasses like tiny pink stars. Bright-eyed chipmunks had stared at them with beady black eyes, and chattered angrily when they came too near, disappearing up the tree-trunks like streaks of brown, and scolding shrilly from the branches overhead. Friendly gray squirrels had poked inquisitive heads through the green leaves, and scampered from branch to branch and tree to tree in a riotous game of tag.

Now bushes slapped angrily in their faces, and a frightened little rabbit scuttled in the bush, rushing to his bunny home before the storm broke; and a slippery snake wriggled across the path, as anxious to get out of their way as they were to have him.

And all the while it grew darker and darker.