Carney's House Party/Winona's Pony Cart Page 5

  Carney liked it all but especially the grandmothers’ shining faces.

  “It was the most fun I’ve had since I came home,” she wrote to Larry.

  Her letter to Larry went off every week and every week one from him arrived. They were as regular as church and Sunday School. There was nothing sentimental in the correspondence. Her mother, overcoming diffidence, questioned Carney about it and she replied, almost indignantly, “Heavens! Larry and I aren’t a bit mushy.” Her mother would have found no romance if she had looked into the letters. But it would have been different if she could have looked into Carney’s heart.

  Carney had a cedar hope chest in her room. She had had it for several years. It held growing piles of white sheets and pillow cases, towels on which she had embroidered her monogram, napkins she had hemmed and doilies she had crocheted. When Bonnie and Carney were quite young they had started exchanging silver spoons at Christmas and on birthdays. They thought in this fashion to acquire a set of silver before they got married. Carney now had eight silver spoons. She polished them sometimes.

  The hope chest had always belonged to a future dreamily remote. The house in which she would one day cook, set tables, and make beds was as vague in her mind as a cloud castle. The lord of the manor had never taken shape at all. But this June, as she sorted and arranged her cedar-scented linens, she found herself thinking about a real house and a real husband.

  The husband, to tell the truth, was more real than the house. He had thick hair and a crooked smile. He looked like Larry.

  “It’s a good thing Isobel is coming,” Carney thought, rousing herself abruptly out of day dreams. And that night, out on the sleeping porch, watching the stars glimmer through the trees, she thought it again.

  “Why, I haven’t seen him for four years! I may not like him, and he may not like me. Oh, I wish that I could see him!”

  It wasn’t likely, she knew. He couldn’t afford a trip back to the Middle West while he was in college. And her father would think she was insane if she asked to go way out to California just to see Larry.

  If Betsy would only answer her letter! It was odd that she didn’t, for Betsy liked to write letters…or anything else. She wanted to be an author. And Carney had asked her so many questions!

  “There’s nothing I can do about it and so I’ll forget it,” Carney thought. That was her usual philosophy. If there was anything she could do to alter a bad situation, she couldn’t rest until she did it. If there wasn’t, she put it out of her mind.

  “I’ll think about the house party,” she resolved firmly, and turned over and went to sleep.

  5

  East Is East

  BEFORE LEAVING FOR the station to meet Isobel, Carney looked around with satisfaction. Everything possible had been done to start the house party auspiciously.

  The house was immaculate, and Carney’s bedroom was as fresh as the sweet peas on the dressing table. Isobel’s rack in the bathroom was a snowy drift of towels. Olga had polished the silver. She had roasted a ham and baked a pot of beans; she had made a molded salad, two kinds of cookies, and a cake. The menus Mrs. Sibley and Carney had planned were written neatly and hung on a hook in the pantry.

  On Carney’s desk was an incomplete program for the month. It listed the beauty spots to which she wished to take the girls, and assigned dates for parties. Of course other people would give parties. She had left space for these and for spur-of-the-moment picnics, hikes, and drives. But dates were set for the masquerade at which she proposed to introduce her guests to the Deep Valley Crowd, and the luncheon her mother’s cousins were giving, and Grandmother Sibley’s thimble bee, and Grandmother Hunter’s breakfast.

  As soon as Isobel arrived gaiety would burst like the Fourth of July crackers which were still sounding in the street—or almost as soon. Festivities would wait for Bonnie, who came later in the week.

  Carney went out to the automobile where Hunter sat behind the wheel.

  “Gee, you look nice, Sis!” he said admiringly, inspecting her starched yellow lawn.

  “Wait till you see Isobel.”

  “Is she really so good-looking?”

  “Peachy.”

  “Then I’m glad I put on my best suit.” He winked at her engagingly.

  “And I’m glad the heat has held off,” Carney remarked. Excessive heat was to be expected in Deep Valley in July. But the day was only pleasantly warm. She was glad to have Minnesota put its best foot forward.

  Isobel had certainly put her best foot forward, in return. Her traveling suit of dark blue silk did flattering things to her golden-brown hair. It had a hobble skirt, too, and her peach-basket hat and chiffon boa were the very newest style. Her gaze, as it scanned the depot platform, was appraising, but it warmed when she saw Carney.

  Smiling, she stepped down from the train to Carney’s hug.

  Hunter swept off his hat, showing his glossy dark hair, with a smile that was much like his sister’s.

  “Carney!” cried Isobel. “Why didn’t you tell me about your brother?”

  “I did nothing but talk about my brothers.”

  “But I thought they were all little boys!”

  “Hunter grew up while my back was turned.”

  He tried to conceal his satisfaction and delight as Isobel continued to gaze at him, wide-eyed. Carney could see that Hunter would fall. It wouldn’t hurt him; it would do him good, she knew. But she felt a twinge at the radiance of his face.

  As they drove along the quiet, greenly arched streets, Isobel looked curiously about her.

  “It’s like New England!” she exclaimed.

  “It was settled by New Englanders—and New Yorkers,” Carney replied.

  “And then the Germans arrived,” said Hunter. “They built the brewery and the Catholic Church and the College up on the hill.”

  “And now the Norwegians and Swedes are coming in. If you’re lucky you may be invited to a smorgasbord supper while you’re here.”

  “What, no Indians?” asked Isobel. It was a joke between her and Carney. When they first met she had asked with interest about the Indians in Deep Valley.

  Mrs. Sibley was waiting on the porch. She greeted the visitor with a mingling of middle-western hospitality and Vermont reserve. Isobel presented her with a large box of chocolates.

  “You’re so awfully good to have me,” she said in her sweetest way.

  Jerry came to shake hands, a finger keeping his place in a book.

  “What are you reading?” Isobel asked.

  “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I can see the ocean from my bedroom window.”

  Had she read it, Carney wondered? She hadn’t exactly said so, but Jerry was beaming with pleasure.

  Bobbie rushed in and shook hands firmly.

  “Pleased to meet you. Want to buy some bluing?”

  “Bobbie!” said his mother.

  “I’ve just been wishing I had some bluing,” Isobel said with a smile.

  “Maybe you’d like two bottles.”

  “I would.”

  Bobbie grinned widely. “Gee! Sis bought some, too. I’ll have my baseball suit pretty soon now, maybe.”

  “I hope you’ll get it while I’m here,” Isobel said.

  “She’s certainly trying,” Carney thought. But when the girls went up to Carney’s room, and Isobel strolled about looking at the family pictures, Carney thought she saw that appraising look again.

  Determined to have the worst over, she led the way to the sleeping porch. “We’re bunking here. I hope you’re agile enough to climb through a window.”

  Isobel glanced at her quickly as though to see whether she was joking. Then she lifted up her skirts.

  “Why do we have physical ed. at Vassar?” she asked gaily as she climbed.

  Carney flapped the curtains, hung on wire runners between the beds. “The boys sleep over there. I warn you that they sing after they retire. They sing, ‘All policemen hav
e big feet,’ and thump their stomachs.”

  Isobel burst into laughter. She strolled to the end of the porch and looked up through the treetops at the over-hanging hills.

  “Is there time for a walk before dinner? Do we dress?”

  Carney chuckled. “We don’t have dinner at night in Deep Valley. It’s supper. And all we do is wash our hands.”

  When they gathered for supper her father said grace as usual. Isobel seemed surprised, although she shouldn’t be, Carney thought. At Vassar, too, there was always grace before meals. But after that brief hesitation, Isobel bowed her head more devoutly than anyone at the table.

  Supper was good, served in Olga’s best style. Potato salad was rimmed with crisp green lettuce in the cut-glass bowl. There was sliced cold meat, and tomatoes from the garden. There were raspberries and heavy cream with some of the fresh cookies.

  The boys were scrubbed so that their cheeks shone. Mrs. Sibley had put on a silk waist. Carney was proud, too, of her father, not only because he was so well groomed and handsome but because he talked so well. He had read the new novel, Queed, which Isobel had been reading on the train.

  After supper Mrs. Sibley untied the satin ribbons of the candy box. Bobbie passed it, then took a handful for himself. Everyone looked at Isobel with pleasure.

  “They certainly like her. Now if only she likes them! But you can’t tell a thing from that sweet smile,” Carney thought.

  That night, waiting for the concert on the sleeping porch to end, Carney and Isobel caught up on one another’s news. Isobel had had lunch with Winkie in New York.

  “She told me to remind you that you represent Vassar on every occasion.”

  “How about Howard Sedgwick, the beautiful?”

  “I haven’t seen him. What’s the news from Larry?” Isobel added quickly.

  “Oh, his letters come along as usual. I haven’t heard from Betsy Ray, though. She’s out in California now, you know.”

  “Isn’t she the one who wants to be a writer?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry you won’t meet her. She’s a peach and her house used to be the center of everything. But some of the Crowd are around. As soon as Bonnie comes we’ll start things going. Until then we’ll do as we please.”

  What Isobel pleased, it developed next morning, was to drive out to Murmuring Lake.

  “You’ve told me so much about it that I’m dying to see it,” she said.

  “Why, I’d love to take you. It’s a grand idea,” Carney replied. “Shall we picnic or have dinner at the Inn? If we picnic, we can wear old duds. If we go to the Inn we’ll have to dress up—a little.”

  “The Inn,” said Isobel, after a pause.

  So she put on a lacy blue dress and Carney put on her pink linen, fresh from the iron. She tied a pink ribbon around her dark hair. Hunter, gazing at Isobel, cranked the Maxwell, and they were off with Carney at the wheel.

  The road to Murmuring Lake led up Agency Hill and along a high rolling plain. Corn was knee-high in the fields. The meadows were tinted with white and yellow daisies.

  “I never want to pick another daisy,” Carney said. “Gee, how many millions we picked!”

  “I certainly never want to carry another. That chain was like lead.”

  The road was dusty.

  “I wish there were paved roads everywhere like there are on Front and Broad Streets.”

  “We’re getting them now in the East.”

  “Do Eastern horses have more sense than ours?” Carney stopped the car to let a team of terrified farm horses pass.

  At last they caught sight of the fleecy willows, cottonwoods, and poplars bordering Murmuring Lake. It was the largest lake in the county and enclosed by wooded shores except where farms had lakeside fields and meadows.

  The lake today was like watered silk.

  “There’ll be water lilies over in Babcock’s Bay. Shall we get a boat and row over after dinner?” Carney asked as they walked toward the Inn, a spreading white building rimmed with narrow porches.

  “We might…” Isobel answered doubtfully, and Carney knew she had something else in mind, but she didn’t know what it was.

  The dinner was excellent, as dinners at the Inn always were, and when it was over the girls walked down steep stairs to the dock. Carney sniffed blissfully. She loved the fresh, yet fishy, smell of the lake.

  “I wish we’d brought our bathing suits so we could go swimming. But we can go wading anyway.”

  “Wading!” replied Isobel, in a startled tone.

  “Sure. No one would mind if we took off our shoes and stockings. It’s wonderful to feel wet sand between your toes.”

  Isobel laughed. “I don’t believe I’d care to.”

  “Well, how about the water lilies, then?”

  “We might…” Isobel paused. “Or we might go to see that Hutchinson house your mother wrote about.”

  “Marvelous!” Carney responded with enthusiasm. “I’ve heard of nothing but that house and the Hutchinson son ever since I got home.”

  She led the way briskly back to the auto.

  They took the leafy road around the lake. Glimpses of shimmering water flashed past. Summer cottages were ensconced among trees, and happy children in bathing suits were shouting.

  At length Carney said, “That’s the old Dwyer place up ahead…the Hutchinson place, I mean.” She slowed the car.

  Nearing the hedge which enclosed the property, the road swooped inland, yielding the waterfront.

  “If we’re going to see anything, we have to get out,” Carney decided. So they halted the Maxwell under a tree and walked back to the entrance.

  Inside at the left were a boathouse, a diving tower, and a dock where a launch and several canoes were tied. From this vicinity there came a sound of hammering, but no one was in sight.

  A wide driveway curved upward through a green tree-shaded lawn to a big white clapboard house. It was almost concealed by foliage, but they could see a tower and many porches.

  “Oh, I wish we could get a little closer!” Isobel said.

  “Well, come on, coward!”

  They advanced boldly through the open gate. At the right was a rose garden in midsummer glory. There were red roses and pink ones, yellow ones and white ones. They seemed to tint the very air, just as they filled it with fragrance.

  “How beautiful!” Isobel cried.

  “Old Mr. Dwyer liked roses, but the Hutchinsons have added a lot,” Carney responded.

  “Perhaps you’d like to look around.”

  Both girls started at the sound of a deep soft voice. It was a surprisingly soft voice, Carney thought, when she saw from whom it came. The young man wasn’t tall, and not exactly fat, but he was definitely large. He seemed to be overflowing a khaki shirt, baggy trousers, and high hunting boots. He had several days’ growth of beard and his pompadour of fine straight hair was unkempt, too.

  “He must be a very good gardener,” Carney thought, “or the Hutchinsons wouldn’t let him go around looking like that.”

  Probably, she decided, he was a stable hand, or general handy man. He had come from the direction of the boathouse and there was a hammer in his hand.

  “If the family wouldn’t mind,” Carney answered. “We’re just dying to.”

  “Come in, come in,” he urged. “The roses are rather special. Every variety grown in the Middle West.”

  “I can see that it is an exceptional collection,” Isobel answered. Carney was pleased to notice her graciousness. There wasn’t a trace of condescension in it.

  The big young man showed them over the rose garden rather thoroughly. Isobel was full of questions. She knew, apparently, a great deal about roses. She asked to see their Alice Longworths and commented on grafting. Carney trailed after them, stooping now and then to sniff a particularly delectable bloom.

  Suddenly Isobel stopped talking. “You’ve been awfully kind. But we really must go now. Don’t you think so, Carney?”

  Carney burst into a chuckle. “I
certainly do. Before the Hutchinsons come down and throw us out.”

  “See here,” said the unshaven young man. He looked at her intently with very blue eyes. He had, she saw, a dimple in his chin. “Nobody’s going to throw you out. I’m Sam Hutchinson.”

  Carney stared at him, and then her laugh bubbled so infectiously that he and Isobel laughed, too.

  “Well! Why didn’t you say so? I thought you were one of the stable hands.”

  With his hands in the pockets of his grubby soiled trousers he grinned broadly.

  “I’m Caroline Sibley.”

  “I know,” he answered. “I saw you at the circus. Did the old ladies enjoy it?”

  “They loved it. And so did I. This is my house guest, Isobel Porteous, from Long Island, New York.”

  “Long Island, eh?” said Sam. He gave Isobel an appreciative glance. “You must like boats then? Want to see my new one?”

  “He likes Isobel,” Carney thought, delightedly. “What luck that we happened to come!”

  They strolled down to the dock at the side of which a gleamingly new sailboat rested against newly nailed canvas bumpers which explained the hammering. He suggested a sail.

  “Really,” said Carney. “We can’t. There’s lots to be done at home. I’ve the second installment of a house party coming soon.” Her brown eyes twinkled. “I’m awfully glad you happened to be a Hutchinson. I wouldn’t have enjoyed going out on my ear.”

  Isobel gave him her hand and her longest, sweetest, most adoring smile.

  Carney, watching, had a sudden revelation. All at once she knew why Isobel had suggested driving to the Hutchinson house, why she had wanted to come to Murmuring Lake in the first place, and why she had chosen the Inn where they would have to dress up.

  “East is east, and west is west,

  And never the twain shall meet…”

  thought Carney, both amused and irritated.

  “Why, she could just as well have said right out, ‘I’d like to meet Sam Hutchinson.’ I’d have arranged it. In fact, we couldn’t have avoided meeting him long, he’s so friendly. He’s like a baby…hippo.”