Blue Bonnet took off her cap and sweater and laid them lightly on the high feather bed with its wonderful patch-work quilt--the "rising sun"
pattern running riot through it.
"It"s so clean I hate to muss it up with my things," she said, casting about for a chair.
"I speak for this bed," Kitty said, depositing her things carelessly. "I slept in it the last time we came. It"s as good as a toboggan. You keep going down and down and--"
"We"re going to draw for it," Amanda announced from the wash-stand where she was wrestling with Debby"s mud. "It will hold four; the other three girls will have to go in the next room."
"Why couldn"t we bring the other bed in here--I mean the springs and mattress?" Debby suggested. "Do you think your aunt would care, Amanda?"
Amanda volunteered to ask.
Blue Bonnet took her turn at the wash basin and then wandered into the parlor. She looked about wonderingly. Family portraits done in crayon adorned the walls. A queer little piano, short half an octave, occupied one corner of the room, a marble-topped table, the other. A plush photograph alb.u.m, a Bible and a copy of Pilgrim"s Progress lay on the table. The carpet was green, bold with red roses; roses so vivid in coloring that they seemed to vie with the scarlet geraniums that filled the south window to overflowing.
But over it all a spirit of peace and contentment rested--a homey atmosphere, unmistakable and refreshing. Blue Bonnet gazed through the one un.o.bstructed window of the little room wistfully. Twilight was closing in. Somewhere out in the field a cow bell tinkled, and a boy"s voice called to the cattle. How familiar it all was.
Amanda"s voice broke the stillness.
"Why, Blue Bonnet Ashe," she said, coming in the room followed by her aunt with a lamp, "what are you doing in here all alone? You look as if you had seen a ghost. Come right out in the kitchen. Aunt Priscilla has supper all on the table."
And such a supper as it was!
The chicken, and there seemed an endless amount, was piled high on an old blue platter that Blue Bonnet fancied her grandmother would have paid almost any price for. Fluffy potatoes, flakey biscuits, golden cream and b.u.t.ter, preserves in variety--everything from a farmhouse larder that could tempt the appet.i.te and gratify the taste.
"I feel as if I never could eat another mouthful as long as I live,"
Blue Bonnet declared as she rose from the table.
"That"s just the way I used to feel last summer on the ranch after one of old Gertrudis" meals," Kitty said.
Amanda"s aunt suggested a run down the lane.
Down the lane they ran, laughing and calling; old Shep, stirred from his usual calm, barking and bounding at their heels.
It was too dark for a walk, so the girls soon retraced their steps, settling themselves in the parlor for a visit with the family before going to bed.
"Do any of you play?" inquired Amanda"s aunt, looking toward the odd little piano.
"Blue Bonnet does," Kitty announced promptly. "Come, "little Tommy Tucker must sing for his supper.""
Blue Bonnet went over to the piano. Kitty"s remark served as a reminder.
She was glad to repay Amanda"s aunt for some of her kindness.
The piano was sadly out of tune, but it is doubtful if Amanda"s relatives would have enjoyed a symphony concert as much as Blue Bonnet"s simple ballads--the familiar little airs which she gave unsparingly.
After she had quite exhausted her stock, there were clamors for repet.i.tion, until Blue Bonnet felt that she had wiped out the debt of the entire "We Are Sevens."
Amanda"s aunt was found to be quite reasonable about transferring the bed from the back room. Amanda and the small son of the household undertook its removal, Kitty giving orders.
"Anybody would think you were going to sleep in it, Kitty, you"re so particular," Amanda objected. "Get busy and help some."
"I spoke for the big bed," Kitty reminded.
"Yes, and it was selfish of you. We"re going to draw for the big bed. I told you that before."
There was a shout of laughter a minute later when Kitty pulled the short slip for the bed on the floor.
Sarah Blake offered to change with her, but the others objected.
"You"re an obliging dear, Sarah," Kitty said appreciatively, "but I will stay where I"m put. I don"t want to take your place."
Later in the night Sarah wished that she had. She wondered as she shrank to the edge of the bed and tried to make herself as small as possible, if three persons to a bed on the floor, wouldn"t have been preferable to the rail which fell to her lot.
It was long past midnight when the last joke was told, the last giggle suppressed. The fun might have gone on indefinitely if, from somewhere in the house, Amanda"s uncle"s boot hadn"t fallen ominously, and Amanda"s aunt cleared her throat audibly.
Morning found them up with the larks. There was a stroll down the shady lane before breakfast, and afterward, when the dishes were cleared away and the bedrooms restored to proper order, Amanda"s uncle insisted upon piling them all in the big farm wagon and taking them to church.
"It seems to me that it is so much easier to be good--that is, to be religious, in the country," Blue Bonnet said as they neared the meeting-house, and the bell in the small tower rang out slowly. "There"s something comes over you when you hear the bell calling, and see the people gathering--"
""A sort of holy and calm delight,""
Kitty quoted.
Blue Bonnet nodded.
"I reckon so--that"s as near as you can come to it. There are feelings there aren"t any words for, you know, Kitty--kind of indescribable."
The sight of seven pretty, attractive girls--city girls--in one pew, occasioned some comment in church; otherwise there was scarcely a ripple to disturb the calm that rested upon the congregation.
"Unless some one will kindly volunteer to play the organ to-day," the minister said, rising in the pulpit, "we shall have to sing without music. Our organist is sick."
Blue Bonnet glanced about her. No one seemed inclined to offer services.
There was a silence of several seconds. The minister waited. Then Amanda"s aunt leaned over and whispered something in Blue Bonnet"s ear.
Blue Bonnet rose instantly and went to the organ.
She was a little nervous. She knew that organs differed somewhat from pianos, and she wasn"t familiar with them, but it never occurred to her to hesitate when she seemed to be needed. She found the hymn and started out bravely. Sometimes the music weakened a little when Blue Bonnet, absorbed in the notes, forgot to use the pedals, but, on the whole, it was not bad, and the minister"s hearty handshake and radiant smile after the service more than compensated for any embarra.s.sment she had suffered.
"It has been perfectly glorious," Blue Bonnet declared to Amanda"s aunt as they parted with her at daybreak Monday morning. "We"ve just loved every minute of our visit here, and would you mind--all of you--I want the whole family--standing out there by the big gate while I get a picture of you? I couldn"t possibly forget you after the perfectly lovely time you"ve given us, but I"d like the picture to show to Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda."
"Oh, Blue Bonnet," Kitty complained, "haven"t you enough pictures yet?
You"ve been taking them for a year--and more!"
Blue Bonnet quite ignored the remark as she proceeded to line up Amanda"s aunt and her family. She got several snaps, and as she put away her kodak she promised to remember the group with pictures--a promise fulfilled, much to the delight of the farm people, later.
CHAPTER III