CHAPTER XIII
CHARLOTTE GORDON’S PARTY
UNCLE DAVE and Aunt Miranda went home the next morning. They did not know that Bobby had almost run away. Neither did Meg and the twins. Mother Blossom knew, for Father Blossom told her. But she only hugged Bobby when she came into his room to call him the next morning and whispered that he must never think of running away and leaving her, no matter what happened.
“I couldn’t get along without my big boy,” she said earnestly.
Bobby and Father Blossom had reached home before Mother Blossom and Uncle Dave and Aunt Miranda came in from Mrs. Ward’s, so Bobby had been spared any explanations. He himself told Meg several weeks afterward and she was much surprised to hear what he had planned to do.
The carpenter apparently had not made up his mind that the boys were responsible for the destruction of his shop, for he caused no arrests to be made. Father Blossom and Fred’s father found out that one of the tramps seen around the shop was supposed to have once worked for Mr. Bennett, but beyond that they could not get a description of the men.
“But if they set fire to the shop, we’ll find them,” said Father Blossom. “You tell the boys to stop worrying over this, Bobby. No one is going to do anything to you, and sooner or later you’ll hear that Mr. Bennett has discovered who burned down his shop.”
A cold snap that brought wonderful skating helped Bobby and his chums to forget their troubles. And when Charlotte Gordon, one of the girls in Bobby’s class at school, sent out invitations for a New Year’s party, they were sure that nothing could ever bother them again.
“Isn’t she nice to ask me!” exclaimed Meg, when she came home from the ice pond one afternoon to find two square pink invitations on the hall table, one addressed to Bobby and one to herself. “Hester Scott told me this morning that she invited all your class, Bobby, but I’m in the next grade. Hester didn’t get an invitation.”
“I suppose Charlotte thought it would be nice to ask you, because of Bobby,” said Mother Blossom. “When I was a little girl I always went to parties with my brother.”
“But she forgot us!” chorused the twins excitedly. “Can’t we go, Mother? Maybe Charlotte didn’t know about us.”
Mother Blossom laughed and said she thought that Charlotte knew about Dot and Twaddles.
“You wouldn’t have much fun at this party, dears,” she told the disappointed youngsters. “The children who are asked are several years older than you; I’ll tell you what we’ll do when Meg and Bobby go to the party. We’ll have one of our own. Dot may set the dolls’ table and Norah will give her something good to eat and I will come upstairs and play with you myself. How will that please you?”
The twins loved to have Mother Blossom play with them and they did not mind about the party with such a pleasant day to look forward to. Although New Year’s Day was nearly a week off, Dot teased Norah to tell her what they could have to eat and Twaddles helped to set the doll table so many times that he broke two of the cups and saucers.
“Going to Charlotte Gordon’s party?” asked Fred Baldwin when he met Bobby in the grocery store the morning after the invitations had been sent out. “You are? So’m I. But what do you think, she’s asked Tim Roon and Charlie Black. I wouldn’t have them at my birthday party last summer; they’re too mean to invite to a party, I think.”
“Maybe Charlotte is polite ’cause she is a girl,” ventured Bobby.
“Shucks, it’s just because they’re in our class,” retorted Fred. “She could have left them out, as well as not. But she invited every single boy and girl. Meg’s the only one asked outside the class.”
Meg was much pleased when she heard this.
“I think Charlotte is lovely,” she said. “And why shouldn’t she invite Tim Roon and Charlie Black? I guess they like to go to parties.”
“Well, I hope they know how to act,” remarked Bobby. “But I don’t believe they do.”
New Year’s Day finally came—though Meg and Bobby thought it never would—and in the afternoon they went gaily off to Charlotte’s party. Very nice they looked, too, Meg in a white wool frock and wearing blue hair-ribbons and her beloved blue locket which she had lost and found the winter before. Bobby wore his best suit and shiny patent leather shoes.
“We’re going to have a party, too!” the twins called after them, and Meg and Bobby turned to wave their hands to show that they understood.
Charlotte Gordon lived in the largest house in Oak Hill. The Gordons had moved to Oak Hill from Chicago and everyone liked them for, although they had a great deal of money and kept three cars and a staff of servants, Mrs. Gordon did not forget or try to make other people forget that her father had kept the grocery store in Oak Hill for years and that she had gone to school with many of the Oak Hill folk. She sent her daughter to the same school now, and Charlotte was a lovely little girl, dark-eyed and pretty and with her mother’s own charming manners and way of keeping friends.
“I’m so glad you could come,” said Mrs. Gordon kissing Meg as she met her in the hall. “Charlotte will show you where to put your things, dear. Bobby, you’ll find some of the boys upstairs who will tell you where to go.”
Upstairs in Charlotte’s room Meg found a little group of girls shaking out their hair-ribbons and comparing dresses and slippers.
“What a darling locket!” said Eleanor Gray, when Meg took off her coat. “I never saw one like it.”
“It belonged to my great-aunt Dorothy,” explained Meg. “My Aunt Polly gave it to me. I love it because it’s blue.”
In a room across the hall, Bobby found the boys. He knew them all because he saw them every day in school. Fred and Bertrand and Palmer were there and Tim Roon and Charlie Black who were already trying to do hand-springs over the beautiful carved mahogany bed with its blue satin cover.
“Come on downstairs and don’t act foolish,” growled Palmer, as Tim landed in the center of the bed. “That’s no way to behave at a party.”
“I guess I know how to act as well as you do,” retorted Tim. “But I’m ready to go down. I want to tell Mrs. Gordon to have the fire extinguishers ready in case of a fire.”
Bobby colored angrily, but Fred pinched him to remind him to keep still.
“Wait till we get him outside, and we can punch him,” whispered Fred. “But I don’t think it would be very nice to start a row in here.”
Bobby didn’t think so, either, and with an effort he kept from “talking back” to Tim. Everyone went downstairs and Mrs. Gordon announced that they would have a Virginia reel first.
“Everyone can dance that,” she said. “I’ll play for you. And you must keep your partners for the first game.”
To Meg’s surprise, and small pleasure, Tim Roon asked her to dance with him. She wanted Bobby for her partner for she did not know how to dance well, but Meg was a polite little girl and she did not know how to refuse Tim without offending him. She did not enjoy the reel very much, though, for Tim was clumsy and stepped on her feet often and besides he tormented her by twitching her hair-ribbon whenever he thought no one would see him.
“Now we’re going to play a game,” announced kind Mrs. Gordon when the dance was finished. “Keep the same partners you had for the reel, children. All sit on the floor in a circle, and close your eyes. I am going to pass something around and let you guess what it is by smelling it.”
The children sat down in a circle, Tim on one side of Meg, Charlie Black on the other. Mrs. Gordon went around back of them and held a small bottle for each one to smell. Such wild guesses! Fred Baldwin thought it was camphor, and Bobby was sure it was cologne.
“I think it’s vinegar,” said Meg when her turn came.
She had guessed it and she guessed the next test, also, which was a pickle cut up in tiny bits so that each child had a taste. If you think you can tell a pickle every time, try it some day when your eyes are closed and you have not seen what you are going to eat.
“We’ll let Meg test you for the sense of touch,” said Mrs. Gordon, smiling. “Give them something of yours to feel, Meg, and see if they can guess what it is.”
Without hesitation, Meg unclasped her locket and passed it around the circle. No one could guess what it was. Tim Roon was the last to handle it and finally he “gave up.”
“It was my locket,” explained Meg dimpling. And then Mrs. Gordon said they would play another game.
This was to answer “Happy New Year” to every question asked without laughing and they had been playing several minutes before Meg realized that Tim had not given her back her locket. She waited till the game was over and then asked him for it.
“I haven’t your locket,” said Tim. “I gave it back to you. Have you gone and lost it again?”
Meg was sure he had not given it back, but she looked about the room carefully. She could not find it. When they marched out to supper it was still missing and she was afraid to say anything to Bobby who did not like Tim Roon, she knew.
“He might hit him, or something,” reasoned Meg. “I know I didn’t lose my locket, but folks might think I did. I lost it once and they think I’m careless, I guess.”
She could not half enjoy the delicious goodies and when they went back to play more games after supper, Meg stole away by herself to have a little cry. She had hidden herself in one of the big leather chairs in the book-lined room across the hall which was Mr. Gordon’s library and she was sobbing quietly when suddenly a deep voice said, “Well, bless me, and who is this?”
A tall, gray-haired gentleman stood looking down at her. Meg knew he must be Mr. Gordon. When he found she couldn’t stop crying he sat down and took her on his lap and by and by Meg found she could tell him about the lost locket and Tim and Bobby.
“And I did lose it once,” she explained, “and perhaps I lost it this time, but I know I didn’t.”
“You stay here,” said Mr. Gordon shortly.
He went away and in a few minutes he came back and Tim Roon, looking very frightened and ashamed, was with him.
“Tim has something to give you, Meg,” said Mr. Gordon.
Silently Tim gave her her locket and Meg was so glad to get it back she thanked Tim as though he had found it for her.
“If you don’t say anything about it, Meg won’t,” Mr. Gordon told him. “I don’t like Charlotte’s party to be disturbed and I would rather she did not know what a mean boy she has invited as a friend. Come, Meg, we’ll go back before they begin to wonder where you are.”
Bobby had been looking for Meg and he was surprised to see her come in with Mr. Gordon. It was almost time to go home and after they had unwound the spider web of strings which brought them each a gift, the party was over.
“I hope you’ll have a party every day in the year,” said Palmer Davis, trying to be very polite when he said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Gordon.
“That would give us a gay new year, if not a happy one, wouldn’t it?” Mrs. Gordon answered him laughingly. “Well, you should all be invited, my dears.”