The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors Part 22

"They must keep along near the hay wagon. Such old ladies should not be alone on the road," said Douglas.

"I dare you to tell them that! They have no fear of anything or anybody.

They say they have lived alone in this county for so many, many years that they are sure n.o.body will ever harm them."

"Well, I am sure n.o.body ever would," said Nan.

The girls had decided that the only way to take care of so many guests was to double up "in layers," as Lucy called it. Bobby was sent over into the new house with Lewis and Bill, his old tent mates, for whom Nan and Lucy had vacated their room while they came over to the old house and brought Tillie Wingo with them.

"Three in a double bed and two in a single bed wouldn't be so bad after a ball," Nan had declared.

Dressing for the ball was the more difficult feat, however. The ceiling was so low and sloping and Tillie Wingo did take up so much room with her fluffy ruffles. The Carter girls were glad to see the voluble Tillie. She was such a gay, good-natured person and seemed so pleased to be included in this pleasure party. She looked as pretty as a pink in a much beruffled painted chiffon; and while they were dressing, she obligingly showed Helen the very latest steps in dancing.

Helen was charming in her birthday present dress. Nan declared she looked like the princess in the fairy tale with the dress like the moonlight.

"With all my finery, I don't look nearly so well as you do, Douglas,"

Helen declared.

Indeed Douglas was beautiful. She had on the graduating dress, the price of which had caused her so much concern the spring before. With careful ripping out of sleeves and snipping down of neck, Mrs. Carter had converted it into an evening dress with the help of a wonderful lace fichu, something left over from her own former splendor.

The sight of her eldest daughter all dressed in the ball gown brought tears of regret to poor Mrs. Carter's eyes.

"What a debutante you would have made!" she sighed. "You have a queenly something about you that is quite rare in a debutante and might have made the hit of the season."

"Oh, Mumsy, I'm a much better district school teacher!" and Douglas blushed with pleasure at her mother's rare praise.

The girl had seen a subtle difference in her mother's manner to her ever since she had felt it her duty to take a stand about their affairs. Mrs.

Carter was ever gentle, ever courteous, but Douglas knew that she looked upon her no longer as her daughter somehow,--rather as a kind of taskmistress that Fate had set over her.

The young men were gathered in the living-room waiting for the girls and when they burst upon them in all the glory of ball gowns they quite dazzled them.

"Douglas!" gasped Lewis in an ill-concealed whisper, "you somehow make me think of an Easter lily."

"Well, I don't feel like one a bit. I can't fancy an Easter lily's dancing, and I mean to dance every dance I get a chance and all the others, too."

"I reckon I can promise you that," grinned her cousin.

Bill Tinsley made no ado of taking the pretty Tillie in his arms and opening the ball with a whistled fox trot.

"I'm going to get the first dance with you, and to make sure I'll just take it now, please."

"Don't you like my dress?" asked Helen, twirling around on her toe before Dr. Wright, whose eyes plainly showed that he not only liked the dress but what was in the dress rather more than was good for the peace of mind of a rising young nerve specialist.

"Lovely!" he exclaimed, not looking at the dress at all, but at the charming face above the dress.

"Douglas gave it to me for a birthday present,--it was her extravagance, not mine. I think she is about the sweetest thing in all the world. The only thing that worries me is mashing it all up in the Suttons' hay wagon."

"Are the roads so very bad? Why not go in my car?"

"They are pretty bad, but no worse than the road from Richmond. It certainly is strange how that road changes. It was fine when the agent brought us out here to see the place. Wasn't it?"

"It was, but I don't think it is such a very bad road now. It may be because I like to travel on it. But come on and go with me in my car. If you will trust your dress and neck to me."

"I will, since you put my dress first! Somehow that makes me feel you will be careful of it and respect it."

A rattle of wheels and Billy Sutton came driving up in a great hay wagon filled with nice, clean straw, and close on his heels were Mr. and Mrs.

Sutton in their carriage, which was to take Mr. and Mrs. Carter sedately to the ball.

"Helen and I are going in my car. Does anyone want to occupy the back seat?" asked George Wright, hoping he would be paid for his politeness by a refusal.

"No indeed, I adore a hay wagon! It's so nice and informal," cried Tillie.

Douglas did want to go, but felt perhaps it was up to her to chaperone the youngsters in the hay wagon, so for once Dr. Wright thought he was to get Helen for a few moments to himself.

"Chloe must go with us," declared Helen. "She wants to stop in Paradise to see her mother."

Dr. Wright cracked a grim joke to himself which concerned Chloe and the antipodes of Paradise, but he smothered his feelings and opened the door for the delighted colored girl, who had never been in an automobile before.

What a gay crowd they were in that hay wagon! Billy Sutton had contrived to get Nan on the front seat with him, where she was enthroned high above the others, looking down on the horses' backs as they strained and pulled the great wagon through the half-frozen mud. Billy had some friends out from town who immediately attached themselves to Tillie Wingo, who was to beaux just as a honey-pot to bees. They stopped and picked up two families of young folks on the way to the count's, and by the time they got them all in, the wagon was quite full.

"I am glad Helen didn't trust her new dress to this," Douglas whispered to Lewis.

"Well, I am glad you didn't have on such fine clothes and came this way," he whispered back. "Wright is too reckless for me on these country roads. Not that I am afraid myself, but I certainly should hate to see you turned over."

"Whar Miss Ellanlouise?" asked Chloe, when she could get her breath after the first mad plunge into the delights of motoring.

"Oh, there! How selfish of me! I should have thought of it and asked them to go with us," said Helen.

"We can go back for them," suggested the doctor, who had begun to feel that he never would have a chance to see Helen alone.

"Oh, no, we needn't mind. They are coming in their phaeton, and no doubt have started long before this. They are so good to me, I should have thought of them."

Chloe was put out at Paradise, a.s.suring her mistress she would come up through the woods in a few moments and no doubt be at her post in the dressing-room before the guests should arrive.

Paradise was very dark and lonesome. The few scattered cabins showed not a gleam. There was a dim light trickling from the windows of the club, but as they approached that rickety building, that disappeared.

Helen saw some dark forms up close to the wall when she looked back after pa.s.sing that place of entertainment.

"I reckon they are going to initiate someone tonight," she thought.

"Chloe had such a strange talk with me today," she told her companion and then repeated the conversation she had had with the colored girl. "I can't quite understand her."

"Perhaps this count is instilling some kind of silly socialistic notions in their heads," suggested the doctor, who held the same opinion Lewis Somerville did of the gentleman who was to be their host for the evening. Indeed, he so cordially mistrusted him that only the fact he was to be with Helen had reconciled him to spending an evening under his roof.

"Oh, no, I can hardly think that, and besides, the count does not do the teaching. That is done by a Mr. Herz, his secretary. He is an American, born in Cincinnati. He seems to be very intelligent and certainly has taken a shine to Douglas. I don't know just what she thinks of him, but she lets him walk home from school with her every now and then."

"I don't like the name much!"

"Well, the poor man can't help his name. You speak as though we were already at war with Germany. I am trying to preserve our neutrality until war is declared."

"My neutrality has been nothing but a farce since I have realized that Germany is at war with us."