The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 32

"Wake up, you two!" said Alice, tickling Hannah's plump cheek, while Frieda tweaked the pink bow from Catherine's bronze braids.

"Time to take off your pink bow, dear. It's daylight and it looks worse than goldenrod with red ribbon."

"Ouch! You needn't have given that last yank. I'm awake. Hannah!"

Hannah sighed and turned over. "Don't bother me," she said. "I didn't get to sleep last night until this morning."

"Why aren't you in your own room and bed?" asked Frieda severely.

"I'll wager you two slept together, yourselves," said Catherine. "O, Hannah, do wake up! It's raining!"

"Yes, that's what we came to tell you," said Alice. "We've just been watching it wash away our beautiful moonlight picnic."

Hannah sat up and looked out.

"Isn't it beastly?" she remarked.

"I should call it foul," said Catherine, beginning to comb out her great braids.

"Why not fish-ous?" suggested Alice mischievously, whereupon Hannah pitched a pillow at her.

"Ow! Look out for my gla.s.ses!"

"Well, don't make such flat puns then. I believe you sleep with your gla.s.ses on. How funny they must look staring away in the dark. There goes the rising-bell. I'll beat every one of you to breakfast."

Dr. Helen was not sorry to see the rain. An all afternoon picnic, with the evening and a late-rising moon added, did not seem to her a wise plan for the day before going back to college,--"though I do dislike putting a damper on your pleasure," she said at breakfast.

"There's a damper on this one," sighed Catherine. "Alice has not been up the river yet, and the other girls haven't been to one real Boat Club picnic. Mother!" and an inspired look came into Catherine's eyes, "why couldn't we have our picnic in the library instead? It would be as appropriate a way to end this summer as on the river, and this is one of the closed evenings. Don't you think we could?"

The other girls held their breath with eagerness, while Dr. Helen considered.

"I don't see any objection," she said presently. "I suppose that would be more fun than having them all come here?"

"O, heaps more," cried Hannah. "It would be the jolliest kind of a lark."

"Would the Board be willing?" suggested Alice.

"I'm sure of that," said Catherine. "Algernon will be the hardest to persuade, for he feels as though the library were almost holy ground, but I'll interview him at once."

The telephone was kept busy for the next half-hour; by its means everything was arranged, and every one notified, and the girls went to work making preparations for the supper. Polly and Dot came over in the afternoon and the time slipped quickly by, trunk-packing and sandwich-making being mingled in what seemed to the doctor, some of the time, an almost hopeless jumble. At last the sounds of talk and laughter and running up and down stairs ceased. The boys had arrived to carry baskets, and a rain-coated procession tramped gayly off, waving good-bys now and then to the two doctors standing in the window.

"It hardly seems as though Catherine could be the same girl," said her father. "She is so eager and full of fun."

"But she keeps her quaint sweet dignity all the same," answered Dr.

Helen softly. "She will never lose her characteristic charm, and it is such a comfort to have her well enough to wish to eat a cold supper in that bare little room!"

"Can't they heat the place?" asked Dr. Harlow sharply.

"O, yes," his wife a.s.sured him, "and they have all solemnly promised me to dry their skirts as soon as they get there! Hannah always contrives to get into puddles."

"_She's_ not much changed," chuckled the little doctor. "Her language is as funny now and then as Frieda's. She told me they were going to relegate themselves on watermelon this evening!"

"It was a fortunate day for us when Catherine found her," and Dr.

Helen's eyes smiled, as they always did when Hannah's image came before her mind. "And, do you know, I am very much pleased with Alice. She has the honestest eyes, and her manners are as unconscious and simple as can be. I should like to see her mother."

"Father's not so important, of course! But I agree with you, she's the true blue sort. It's Frieda for me, though. Of all inscrutable countenances, hers is the most. I believe she is, on the whole, the most unforeseen young person I have ever had dealings with, and in whatever direction she may choose to let herself out, in the future, she will do something interesting, or 'I shall astonish'!"

At which quotation from the young lady in question, they both laughed, and went out to their own supper, not at all sorry to have a quiet evening alone.

It was not a quiet evening in the little library. Behind the drawn shades, the boys and girls were busy spreading the long reading-table with a white cloth, setting out upon it the motley collection of plates, cups and silver ware which came out of the various picnic baskets, and an equally motley, but very appetizing, array of good things to eat.

Winifred had laden Max with a chafing-dish, all legs and handles, he declared, and with this at one end, Bess' little copper teakettle at the other, Dorcas' asters for centerpiece and Polly's red-shaded candles at accurate intervals between, the whole effect was "very festival," as Frieda said admiringly.

As a finishing touch, Bertha and Algernon, official hosts, walked around the table laying typewritten catalog cards at each place.

The others swarmed around instantly, examining and commenting.

"Cunning!" "Real library place cards!" "What a pretty idea!" "But _what_ do they mean?"

Algernon and Bertha only laughed.

"No one can sit down till he has found his proper place," said Algernon sternly. "This is a well-conducted library!"

"They all have the same number," cried Bert. "I'm on to that. See! It's the date, fixed up to look like the mystic symbols they mark the books with. 190.9 Se 16. September 16th, 1909. That's so much, gained. Now some of you others can figure out the rest. I've done my share."

The others wandered around the table, picking up the cards and laying them down again.

"_Brightness, or Beauty_," read Polly, disgustedly. "Imagine any one of us owning up to that! Of course, we all know we have them both, but who is going to claim them?"

"It's going to be a conflict between modesty and hunger soon, I can see that," said Archie.

"_Peace_ and _Purity_ are all well enough. If I could find a half-way sort like _Perfect Honesty_ or _Genius_, I'd stop there! What's this? _Bright Raven!_ I tell you, it's a game, made out of book t.i.tles. But I'll be jiggered if I ever heard of one of them."

"I never did, either," said Dorcas, shortly. "They must have hunted around in very queer places to find things that none of us know. _Star of the Sea_, though, does sound familiar. Isn't it one of Tennyson's?"

Bertha choked and turned away, avoiding Algernon's eye.

"Hurry up, and find yours, the rest of you," said Tom suddenly, "I'm fixed and I'm ready to eat."

Every one pounced upon him, to discover that he had chosen to install himself at a place marked _The Whiskered One_.

"I'm the only fellow here who ever wore a mustache," he said, "so it's plain, though rather far-fetched."

"It's not your place, though, Tom, truly," said Bertha. "I'm afraid we'll have to help. The librarian always does help stupid people."

"We won't ask him, though! If you two were bright enough to make these cards, we'll figure out the meanings or go without our supper," said Polly decisively, and the girls echoed her, though the boys groaned, and Max helped himself to a sandwich.

"Now, listen," said Polly. "I'm president of this club, and I call you all to order. I'll read the cards, one after another and you must all think, and perhaps we'll be able to get on to the system--I mean, to understand it."

Every one struck an att.i.tude and waited while Polly walked up one side of the table and down the other, reading aloud in order: