how many yet Alfy?”
“Three. Them two that are and the one that isn’t.”
“Mike Martin.”
Both Jim and Alfy exclaimed in mutual protest:
“Why Dorothy! That fellow? you must be crazy.”
“No, indeed! I’m the sanest one here. That boy is doing the noblest work anybody ever did on this dear old mountain; he’s making and keeping the peace between south-side and north-side.”
“How do you know, Dorothy?” asked Jim, seriously.
“No matter how I know but I do know. Why, I wouldn’t leave him out of my Party for anything. I’d almost rather be out of it myself!”
Then both he and Alfaretta remembered that winter day on the mountain when Dorothy had been the means of saving Mike Martin from an accidental death and the quiet conference afterward of the two, in that inner room of the old forge under the Great Balm Tree. Probably something had happened then and there to make Dolly so sure of Mike’s worthiness. But she was already passing on to “next,” nodding toward Alfy, with the words:
“The two Smith boys, Littlejohn and Danny.”
Jim Barlow laughed but did not object. The sons of farmer Smith were jolly lads and deserved a good time, once in their hard-worked lives; yet he did stare when Dorothy concluded her list of lads with the name:
“Frazer Moore.”
“You don’t know him very well, Dolly girl. Beside that, he’ll make an odd number. He’s the seventh – ”
“Son of the seventh son – fact!” interrupted Alfaretta; “and now we’ll have to find another girl to match him.”
“I’ve found the girl, Dolly, but she won’t match. Helena Montaigne came up on the train by which your Father John left for the north. You could hardly leave her out from your House Party, or from givin’ her the bid to it, any way.”
“Helena home? Oh! I am so glad, I am so glad! Of course, she’ll get the ‘bid’; I’ll take it to her myself the first thing to-morrow morning. But you didn’t mention Herbert. Hasn’t he come, too?”
James Barlow nodded assent but grudgingly. He had never in his heart quite forgiven Herbert Montaigne for their difference in life; as if it were the fault of the one that he had been born the son of the wealthy owner of The Towers and of the other that he was a penniless almshouse child. Second thoughts, however, always brought nobler feeling into the honest heart of Jim and a flush of shame rose to his face as he forced himself to answer.
“Yes, course. The hull fambly’s here.”
Dorothy checked the teasing words which rose to her lips, for when ambitious Jim relapsed so hopelessly into incorrect speech it was a sign that he was deeply moved; and it was a relief to see Alfaretta once more diligently count upon her fingers and to hear her declare:
“We’ll never’ll get this here list straight and even, never in this endurin’ world. First there’s a girl too many and now there’s a girl too short!”
“Never mind; we’ll make them come out even some way, and I’ll find another girl. I don’t know who, yet, and we mustn’t ask any more or there’ll be no places for them to sleep. Now we’ve settled the guests let’s settle the time. We’ll have to put it off two or three days, to let them get here. I wish your cousin Tom Hungerford could be asked to join us but I don’t suppose he could come,” said Dolly to her friend Molly.
“No, he couldn’t. It was the greatest favor his getting off just for those few hours. A boy might as well be in prison as at West Point!”
“What? At that ‘heavenly’ place? Let’s see. This is Wednesday night. Saturday would be a nice time to begin the Party, don’t you all think?”
“Fine. Week-end ones always do begin on Saturday but the trouble is they break up on Monday after;” answered Molly.
“Then ours is to be a double week-ender. Aunt Betty said ‘invite them for a week.’ That’s seven days, and now Master Stark comes your task. As a committee of entertainment you are to provide some new, some different, fun for us every single one of those seven days; and it must be something out of the common. I long, I just long to have my home-finding House Party so perfectly beautiful that nobody in it will ever, ever forget it!”
Looking into her glowing face the few who were gathered about her inwardly echoed her wish, and each, in his or her own way, resolved to aid in making it as “perfect” as their young hostess desired.
Monty heaved a prodigious sigh.
“You’ve given me the biggest task, Dolly Doodles! When a fellow’s brain is no better than mine – ”
“Nonsense, Montmorency Vavasour-Stark! You know in your little insides that you’re ‘’nigh tickled to death’ as Alfy would say. Aren’t you the one who always plans the entertainments – the social ones – at your school, Brentnor Hall? You’re as proud as Punch this minute, and you know it, sir. Don’t pretend otherwise!” reproved Molly, severely.
“Yes, but – that was different. I had money then. I hadn’t announced my decision to be independent of my father and he – he hadn’t taken me too literally at my word;” and with a whimsical expression the lad emptied his pockets of the small sums they contained and spread the amount on the table. “There it is, all of it, Lady of the Manor, at your service! Getting up entertainments is a costly thing, but – as far as it goes, I’ll try my level best!”
They all laughed and Dorothy merrily heaped the coins again before him.
“You forget, and so I have to remind you, that this is to be my Party! I don’t ask you to spend your money but just your brains in this affair.”
“Huh! Dorothy! I’m afraid they won’t go much further than the cash!” he returned, but nobody paid attention to this remark, they were so closely watching Dorothy. She had opened a little leather bag which lay upon the table and now drew from it a roll of bills. Crisp bank notes, ten of them, and each of value ten dollars.
“Whew! Where did you get all that, Dorothy Calvert?” demanded Jim Barlow, almost sternly. To him the money seemed a fortune, and that his old companion of the truck-farm must still be as poor in purse as he.
She was nearly as grave as he, as she spread the notes out one by one in the place where Monty had displayed his meager sum.
“My Great-Aunt Betty gave them to me. It is her wish that I should use this money for the pleasure of my friends. She says that it is a first portion of my own personal inheritance, and that if I need more – ”
“More!” they fairly gasped; for ten times ten is a hundred, and a hundred dollars – Ah! What might not be done with a whole one hundred dollars?
“’Twould be wicked,” began James, in an awestruck tone, but was not allowed to finish, for practical Alfaretta, her big eyes fairly glittering, was rapidly counting upon her fingers and trying to do that rather difficult “example” of “how many times will seven go into one hundred and how much over?” “Seven into ten, once and three; seven into thirty – Ouch!”
Her computation came to a sudden end. The storm had broken, all unnoticed till then, and a mighty crash as if the whole house were falling sent them startled to their feet.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST AND UNINVITED GUEST
For an instant the group was motionless from fear; then Jim made a dash for the front entrance whence, apparently, the crash had come. There had been no thunder accompanying the storm which now raged wildly over the mountain top, and Alfy found sufficient voice to cry:
“’Tain’t no lightnin’ stroke. Somethin’s fell!”
The words were so inadequate to the description that Molly laughed nervously, and in relieved tension all followed James forward; only to find themselves rudely forced back by old Ephraim, gray with fear and anxiety.
“Stan’