The Little Colonel at Boarding School Part 10

"Tell them that it's all right! That it's only a Hallowe'en scare,"

demanded Allison, in a stage whisper. "Don't let them in. I blew out the matches, and it's only Kitty and Katie under the beds."

"It's all right," called Lloyd, in a quavering tone, but the matron's knock was imperative, and Betty, beckoning the girls frantically toward the closet, fumbled with the bolt until they had whisked into hiding.

The one brief glimpse of the rag dolls, falling over each other in their mad haste to escape, was so comical that both Lloyd and Betty were choking with laughter when the matron entered. They could hardly control their voices while they tried to tell her how the matches had gone out and Lloyd had imagined that there were witches in the room.

Smiling indulgently at their foolishness, which she attributed to the excitement of the occasion, the matron withdrew. She could hear them still laughing when she pa.s.sed through the hall again, several minutes later, for the rag dolls, coming out of the closet as soon as she disappeared, began taking one ridiculous pose after another, in the middle of the floor. The solemn silence in which they struck their limp, boneless att.i.tudes, made the scene all the funnier, and as the girls looked at the surprised expressions Allison had painted on the flat muslin faces, they went into such hysterical laughter that the tears streamed down their faces.

"Oh, girls, _do_ stop!" begged Lloyd, finally, wiping her eyes. "I've laughed till I ache, and it's time for me to dress, for I promised Magnolia to help her into her costume."

Katie and Kitty subsided into a heap on the divan. "Could you have told who we were if you hadn't known we were coming?" asked Katie.

"Never in the world," answered Betty. "I couldn't tell which is which now, if it were not for your voices."

"We're not going to say a word to any one," said Katie. "We oughtn't to talk, you know, if we carry out our part as it should be. We'll slip up into the gymnasium pretty soon, and be sitting on the floor in a corner when the others come up. We'll lop around and watch the fun till the unmasking begins, then we'll come down here and wait for the rest of you."

All the time they had been performing, Allison had been busy before the mirror, and now turned around in her spectral attire.

"The ghost of the veiled lady!" cried Lloyd. "Oh, Allison, yoah make-up is splendid. You're enough to freeze the blood in one's veins. There couldn't be anything moah spooky-looking than that thin tulle veil. I wish Mom Beck could see you. I've heard her talking about that queah little woman whose house used to stand where the seminary cellah is dug now, till I couldn't close my eyes at night. All the darkies believe she still haunts the place."

Betty had never heard the story, so Allison repeated it while she dressed, adding, "You two must do all you can to spread the report that I'm lurking around. You have seen me yourself, you know. If I had my lump of ice, you'd soon feel the touch of my clammy fingers. I wish you'd give me a piece of newspaper to wrap it in, Betty. Then it won't drip."

"I wish we could carry a lump of ice around with us," gasped Kitty. "All this cotton packed around my head and neck makes me so hot I can scarcely breathe."

Miss Edith and Mrs. Clelling, putting the finishing touches to the decorations in the gymnasium, looked around, well pleased. A score of jack-o'-lanterns grinned sociably from the brackets between the windows.

Two more kept guard on each side of the piano, and at least a dozen lighted the long table stretched across one end of the room, on which the spread was arranged. Graceful sprays of bittersweet-vine trailed their bright berries over the white cloth. A huge pumpkin-bowl piled with grapes formed the centrepiece. A pitcher of sweet cider stood at each end, and nuts, persimmons, pop-corn b.a.l.l.s, gingerbread, and apples filled all the s.p.a.ce between.

"It is well worth the trouble," said Miss Edith, lighting the last candle. "The girls will enjoy it thoroughly."

Some one called both teachers from the room just then, and in their absence two uninvited guests, who had been waiting behind the door, hurried in and seated themselves on the floor in the dimmest corner.

"I should say it _is_ worth the trouble," whispered one rag doll to the other, as they looked around the room at the fantastic decorations.

"It's lots more fun coming here this way, than having the party at home, and it's more fun than if we'd been invited."

"I'm nearly roasted," panted the other one, "but I'm glad I'm here. Oh, how pretty!"

It was the entrance of one of the older girls in court train and powdered hair that caused the exclamation, and while they were trying to guess who it could be, the others began to arrive. Old King Cole and Pocahontas came in arm in arm, followed by Red Riding Hood and a brownie, while Puss in Boots proudly escorted Aladdin with his lamp.

Little Bo-Peep and Boy Blue were soon recognized, for Betty had made no attempt to hide the brown curls which helped to make her such a pretty little Dresden shepherdess; and while Lloyd had gathered up her long, light hair under the wide-brimmed hat with its blue ribbon, every graceful gesture and every step she took, holding herself erect with a proud lifting of the head, proclaimed the Little Colonel.

For once in her short life, little Magnolia Budine tasted the sweets of social success, for no one there was more popular or more admired than the saucy Knave of Hearts. With the putting on of the costume she had put on a courage and self-possession that never could have been a.s.sumed with the old-fashioned tight-waisted blue merino and the stiff short tails of hair. Grasping the stolen tart firmly in her chubby hands, and lifting the little slippers with their huge bows and buckles in the high, mincing step Miss Katherine had taught her, she swaggered coquettishly up and down the room, her red mantle sweeping behind her.

Wherever she went a flock of admiring girls crowded around her.

For many a month afterward her red and white crown hung over her mirror, not only as a souvenir of the jolly revel, but as a token that for one night, at least, she had found favour in the eyes of the Princess. Not only had Lloyd circled around her when she was dressed, exclaiming again that she looked perfectly lovely, but when they chose partners for the ghost-walk, to march solemnly through the halls to the slow music of the Dead March, the Princess had chosen her. Lloyd had looked around for Ida, who had come as a Puritan Maid; but the cap and kerchief were nowhere to be seen. She had evidently grown tired of the affair and gone to her room.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'THIS LITTLE KNAVE MUST BE MY PARTNER.'"]

Magnolia did not know that she was second choice. Her cup of happiness was overflowing when Boy Blue turned away from Aladdin and Red Riding Hood, who were both trying to claim her, and said, "No, this little Knave must be my partner. He has stolen my heart as well as the queen's tarts."

In their corner near the piano Kitty and Katie sat stiffly against the wall, seemingly incapable of moving themselves. Several times some of the larger girls made an attempt to lift them, and in whatever position they fell when they were dropped, they lay with hands thrust out and heads lolling to one side. There was a laughing crowd around them continually.

"Oh, my country!" gasped Katie, as the first solemn chords of the Dead March struck her ear and all light in the room was suddenly extinguished except what gleamed from the eyes and mouths of the jack-o'-lanterns.

"They've gone and dragged in old Sally, the skeleton. It's bad enough to hear her bones rattle in the physiology cla.s.s in the daytime; but this is more than I bargained for."

"Now is the time for us to go," whispered Kitty. "They'll unmask soon.

We've seen how they all look and set them to guessing, and we'd better miss the refreshments than run the risk of being discovered."

Katie eyed the table wishfully. "It seems a pity to miss all that spread. Couldn't we creep around the wall to the far side and slip something into our ap.r.o.n pockets? The cloth is so long it would hide us."

"What's to hinder our getting under the table and staying through the whole performance?" suggested Kitty. "The cloth comes nearly to the floor, and I don't believe anybody would think of looking under it. Then we could hear them wonder who we are and where we've disappeared to when they unmask and we are missing."

"Quick, then, while their backs are turned!" exclaimed Katie, not waiting to consider consequences or means of escape later in the evening. Slowly, solemnly, with measured tread, the long procession filed by, and, wheeling to the music, started back toward the other end of the long gymnasium.

Creeping on hands and knees, fearful lest some backward glance might discover them should they stand erect, the two girls, like wary mice, scuttled across the room and disappeared under the sheltering table-cloth.

Grown bold with their successful venture, Kitty proposed that each time the procession turned away from them, they should reach out and grab something from the table. It was an exciting performance. Time after time, as the motley figures turned their backs, two ludicrous heads popped up above the table, and four white woollen gloves clawed hastily at different dishes. When the marauders dropped from sight the last time, there was a goodly store of provisions gathered up in each gingham ap.r.o.n.

"I wouldn't have missed this for anything," giggled Katie some time later, when the unmasking began, and the girls crowded around the table for nuts and apples with which to try their fortunes. In such a babel of voices there was no danger of being overheard.

"Listen! we can tell from the different remarks who every one represented," they whispered to each other.

"Oh, Evelyn Ward, I knew all the time that you were the court lady. I recognized your rings."

"That's what fooled me about Aladdin. Susie Figgs had changed rings with Ada."

"Well, I guessed nearly everybody the first half-hour, except those ridiculous rag dolls. Does anybody know where they have gone?"

That started the discussion the two under the table had been waiting for, and the various guesses, falling wide of the mark, were so amusing that their mirth nearly betrayed their hiding-place. Once they thought their discovery was certain. They had been feeding themselves from the store of provisions in their ap.r.o.ns as well as the size of their muslin mouths would allow. The mouths had been only small slits at first, but they had stretched and torn them with their fingers until they were large enough to allow them to take a good-sized bite of apple. As they sat there, munching nuts and pop-corn, Kitty whispered, "We're like the man in the verse:

"'There was a young man so benighted, He never knew when he was slighted.

He went to a party, And ate just as hearty As if he'd been really invited.'"

Katie tried hard not to laugh, but the effort ended in a snort, and she almost choked on a grain of pop-corn. If some one had not upset a jack-o'-lantern just then and started a wild scramble to put out the candle before it burned the cloth, the unbidden guests must certainly have been discovered.

Gradually the crowd around the table dwindled away, as little groups gathered in different parts of the room, intent on various ways of fortune-telling. Having eaten all they could, and not being able to hear anything more of interest, the girls under the table began to grow tired of their position. Moreover, the heat of their costumes seemed to grow more unbearable every minute.

"We're in a trap," groaned Katie. "How we are ever going to make our escape is--"

Kitty never heard the rest of the sentence, for half a dozen girls, who had ventured down the cellar steps with candle and looking-gla.s.s, came bursting into the room almost hysterical with fright. Breathless from their headlong race up three flights of stairs, they gasped out their news in broken sentences, each voice in a different key.

"Oh, a real ghost! None of your sheet and pillow-case affairs!"

"White hair and a face like marble and a long floating veil!"

"And it clutched Mary Phillips with fingers that were like the dead!

Didn't it, Mary?"