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PILLOWS AND PITCHERS

‟IS there any way to pack pillows in pitchers?” said Marjorie, framing herself in the front doorway, one hand grasping recklessly the handles of three large pitchers, and both arms full of sofa-pillows.

The group on the veranda looked up at her doubtfully.

“Yes,” said brilliant Nan. “Have your pitchers bigger than your pillows, and the thing is done.”

“But the pillows are bigger than the pitchers.”

“Then pack the pitchers in the pillows,” said Betty.

“Why, of course! Betty, you’re a genius!” And Marjorie disappeared with her burdens, while the girls on the veranda fell to chattering again like half a dozen shirt-waisted magpies.

Now I know that a story with eight heroines is an imposition upon even the gentlest of readers; but you see there were eight girls in the Blue Ribbon Cooking Club; and when their president, Marjorie Bond, proposed that they go down to Long Beach and spend a fortnight all by themselves in her father’s cottage, the whole club rose up as one girl and voted aye.

Objections were disposed of as fast as they were raised. Permission? The girls were sure that the sixteen parents concerned could be persuaded to see the matter in a favorable light. Expense? That should be divided equally among them all. Trouble? Would be more than compensated by the fun. Luggage? Not so very much required; the house was completely furnished, except with linen and silver, and each girl should take her share. Burglars? That idea caused some apprehension; but when Marjorie said that Uncle Ned and Aunt Molly would be right next door, plans were suggested sufficient to scare any reasonably cautious burglar out of his wits. And so the preliminaries had been arranged, and the date decided upon, and the day had come.

It was Thursday morning, and they were to leave on the noon train; and now, although ten o’clock had struck, six sailor-hatted girls were gathered on the Bonds’ veranda, hurriedly making final arrangements and frantically trying to remember what were the most important things they had forgotten.

“It’s like a fire,” Jessie Carroll was saying; “you know people always save their old trash and leave their best things to burn up. Now I’m sure I’ve packed just the very things we won’t want and left at home the things we’ll need most. And that reminds me—Nan, can’t I put my best hat in your box? I just had to take my down comfortable, and it was so puffy it wouldn’t leave room for anything else.”

“Oh, don’t take your best hat,” cried Betty Miller; “we’re not going down to Long Beach to dress up and be giddy. It’s so late in the season none of the summer boarders will be there, and we’re just going to wear flannel frocks all day, and tramp in the woods and loll in the hammocks and get brown as berries and hungry as hunters and uncivilized as—as Hottentots.”

“Yes, Betty; but remember somebody has to cook for these hungry Hottentots,” said Mrs. Bond, smiling.

“Aren’t you afraid, girls, that you’ll get tired of cooking? And you’ll find that there’s a great deal of work connected with housekeeping if you do it all yourselves.”

“Oh, no, indeed, Mrs. Bond,” said Nan Kellogg. “I just love to cook, and I don’t mind housework a bit. Mamma thinks it will be good training for me.”

“Such doings!” exclaimed Grandma Bond, a lovely old lady of the silver-haired, apple-cheeked variety. “Living on chafing-dish foolery for two weeks! You’ll all be ill or starved to death in three days, and you’ll wish yourselves back in your comfortable homes.”

“Not we, grandma!” cried Betty. “We have a gas-stove and a range besides our beloved chafing-dish, and we won’t starve. But if Nan makes our Welsh rarebits I’ll not promise that we won’t be ill. Her concoctions are the stuff that dreams are made on. Oh, here’s Helen. What’s your misfortune, my pretty maid?”

Helen Morris came up on the veranda and dropped into a big wicker chair and fanned herself with her hat.

“Girls, I’m exhausted! You know I said I’d take all the things for afternoon tea, but I had no idea there were so many. Why, I’ve packed a whole barrel and they’re not all in yet. To be sure, it’s mostly tissue-paper and excelsior; but I was so afraid they’d break. And I couldn’t get the tea-cozy in at all, or the Dresden cups; I’d hate to break them.”

“Yes,” said Betty, sympathetically; “don’t break the tea-cozy, whatever you do, if it’s that pretty yellow satin one. But you’ve no ingenuity, Nell; why don’t you wear it down on your head? Then you’ll look like a drum-major.”

“I will if you’ll all obey my orders. Well, this won’t do for me. I must go back and reason with those tea-things. I just ran over a minute because I saw you all here. If I can’t get them into the barrel I’ll have to take a cask besides. Good-by. I’ll meet you at the train. What time do we start?”

“Twelve-ten,” replied Hester Laverack. “I’ll go home with you, Helen, and help you pack your china.”

“Yes, do,” said Betty; “two heads are better than one in any barrel.”

But the two heads were already bobbing down the walk, and didn’t hear Betty’s parting shot.

“Nell’s crazy,” remarked Millicent Payne, who always did everything leisurely, yet always had it done on time. “I do hope her barrel will go safely, for her tea-cups and things are lovely.”

“Shall we have tea every afternoon?” asked Marguerite Alden, a fragile wisp of a girl who looked as if a real strong ocean breeze would blow her away. “I’m so glad! I don’t care for the tea at all, but the having it with all us girls together will be such fun, only—I do hate to wash up the tea-things.”

“Girlies,” said Mrs. Bond, “I think it would be much better all round if you’d hire a neat little maid to wash your dishes for you. You can probably find one down there, and I’m sure you’ll be glad to have help when you discover what dish-washing for eight means.”

“I think it would be heaps better, Mrs. Bond,” said Marguerite. “I don’t see how we can have any fun if we have to work all the time.”

“Lazy Daisy!” said Betty. “You won’t do any more than your share. But we won’t let the interloper do any of our cooking; I insist on that.”

“All right, Betty,” said Marguerite, or Daisy, as the girls called her, though she wished they wouldn’t; “and you may be chief cook.”

“No,” said Betty, “I’m not chief cook—Marjorie is that. I’ll be the first assistant. I’ll prepare the vegetables for her, and be a—a peeler.”

“Hurrah for Betty the Peeler!” said Marjorie, appearing again in the front door. “And what am I?”

“You’re the cook,” said Millicent.

“But we’re all cooks.”

“Yes, I know; but you’re head cook, chief cook—cook plenipotentiary, or any title you prefer.”

“Then I’ll be cook,” said Marjorie, “just plain cook.”

“Indeed, you’ll be more than a plain cook,” said her mother, laughing, “if you attempt all the fancy dishes in all those recipe-books I saw you stowing away in your trunk.”

“Oh, they weren’t all recipe-books. Some of them were delectable tales to be read aloud at the twilight hour. I could only take light literature, as the box weighs about a ton now. So I was forced to leave out ‘Advice to Young Maidens’ and Carlyle’s ‘French Revolution,’ for I really hadn’t room.”

“I hope you took ‘Rollo Learning to Work,’ for I’m sure we’ll need it.”

“No, Betty, I didn’t; but I packed ‘First Aid to the Injured’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’; we can struggle along with those.”

“There’s a circulating library down at Long Beach,” said Nan Kellogg; “we can get books there.”

“Now look here, my rising young authoress,” said Betty; “you’re not going down there to read all the time, or write, either. So you may as well make up your mind to it, milady, first as last. We’ll have no bookworms or blue-stockings. ‘Cooks, not Books,’ is our motto. Now, Duchess, look over your lists for the last time; I’m going home to lock my trunk, and then I’m going to don my war-paint and feathers.”

“I am, too,” said Nan; “and I want to go down to the station an hour before train-time, so as to have ample leisure to come back for what I forget.”

“Good idea,” said Marjorie, approvingly. The girls called her “Duchess” because she had a high-and-mighty way of giving orders. Not an unpleasant way—oh, dear, no! Marjorie Bond was the favorite of the whole village of Middleton. Her stately air was due to the fact that she was rather tall for her sixteen years, and carried herself as straight as an arrow. She could have posed admirably for a picture of Pocahontas. Her dark, bright eyes were always dancing, and her saucy gipsy face was always smiling; for Marjorie had a talent for enjoyment, which she cultivated at every opportunity. The girls said she could get fun out of anything, from a scolding to a jug of sour cream. And that latter fact suggests Marjorie’s pet accomplishment, which, though prosaic, afforded much pleasure to herself and her friends. She was a born cook, and by experiment and experience had become a proficient one. Two years ago she had proposed the Cooking Club, and though not very enthusiastic at first, every one of the eight members would tell you now that nothing in Middleton was ever quite so much fun as the Cooking Club.

“I’m sure I’ve thought of everything,” said the Duchess, wrinkling her pretty brows over a handful of scribbled lists. “You’re to bring the forks, Nannie, and a pair of blankets and a table-cloth, and don’t forget your napkin-ring, and your jolly Vienna coffee-pot; and, Betty, take your chafing-dish—we’ll need two; Millicent, you’re responsible for the spoons, and Jessie, knives. Lazy Daisy will take a hammock, and I’ll take one, too; and I’ve packed lots of sofa-pillows, and I hope Helen will take her banjo. I’ve lost my most important list, so I may have forgotten something. But I’ve packed towels, hand and dish, and a scrub-brush and a tack-hammer—and isn’t that all we need to keep house?—except this good-for-nothing little bundle, my own, my only Timmy Loo. Will you go with us, honey?” Marjorie picked up the bundle in question, who wagged his absurd moppy, silvery ears and his still more absurd moppy, silvery tail, and accepted the invitation with a few staccato barks of joy.

“That means yes, of course,” said Betty; “his French accent is so perfect, even I can understand it. Well, good-by, Timmy; I’ll see you later. Can you take him on the train, Marjorie?”

“No; he’ll have to ride in the baggage-car. But I’ve explained it all to him, and he doesn’t mind; and he’ll keep an eye on our trunks and wheels.”

Timmy Loo barked again and blinked his eyes acquiescently, and Betty gave him a final pat on his funny little nose and ran away home.

“I must go, too,” said Marguerite, rising as she spoke and picking a full-blown rose from the trellis above her head.

A careless observer probably would have called Marguerite the prettiest of all the Cooking Club girls. She was small, slender, and graceful, with a rose-leaf complexion and sea-blue eyes, and a glory of golden hair that the girls called her halo. She was visionary and romantic, and her special chum was Nan Kellogg, who was lounging in the hammock with her hands clasped behind her head and her eyes closed. Nan was a dark-haired, olive-skinned Southern girl, with a poetic temperament and a secret ambition to write verse.

“Come, girl,” said Marguerite, dropping rose-petals, one by one, on Nan’s nose. “What are you dreaming of?”

“Oh,” said Nan, opening her eyes, “I was thinking what gay old times we’re going to have down there. I’m so glad we’re going! Marjorie, you’re such a darling, I shall dedicate my first book of poems to you.”

“Do,” said Marjorie; “but don’t write them while we’re down at Long Beach. What shall we do if you go off on a poetic flight when it’s your turn to boil the potatoes?”

“Oh, I sha’n’t boil potatoes; they’re too prosaic. Omelet soufflé is the very plainest thing I shall ever cook.”

Grandma Bond groaned.

“Margy,” she said despairingly, “I hope you packed the medicine-chest I gave you.”

“Oh, yes, grandma; and your bundle of old linen and salve for burns, and your arnica-flowers for bruises, and your sticking-plaster for cuts, and your toothache drops, and your Balsam Balm. Oh, the hospital department will give you a vote of thanks, engrossed and framed. Now go on home, Nan and Daisy; I know you’ll miss the train.”

“Yes, we must go. Good-by, grandma.” For all the girls insisted on sharing Marjorie’s grandma, and the dear old lady’s heart was big enough for them all. “Good-by, grandma; give us a parting word.”

Grandma’s eyes twinkled as she replied: “Well, I advise you to remember that too many broths spoil the cook.”

Six merry laughs greeted this speech, and Nan replied: “Indeed they do, and I won’t allow more than three kinds of soup at any one meal. Now I’m off, Marjorie; I’ll meet you at the train—and oh, Duchess, I ’most forgot to ask you. Brother Jack says, can he and Ted come down and spend a day with us?”

“No, indeed!” cried Marjorie. “We are not going to allow a boy in sight all the time we are there. Tell them we’re sorry to refuse, but we’re not running a co-educational institution, and only girls need apply.”

“I did tell him that, but he begged me to ask you again—”

“No,” said Marjorie, laughing but positive; “tell him we turn a deaf ear—I mean sixteen deaf ears—to his entreaties, and harden our eight hearts to his appeal. There is no use, girls; if the boys come down they’ll spoil everything; don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” said each girl, but with such varying accents that Mrs. Bond laughed heartily, while Marguerite shook her yellow curls and protested that she didn’t want the boys anyway, even if they did bring candy.

Then she and Nan went home, and Jessie Carroll said: “We’ll have plenty of candy, Marjorie, for father will send it down whenever I want him to.”

“Oh, Jessie, that will be fine! It will be just like boarding-school when the boxes come from home,” said Hester Laverack, who had returned from Helen and her refractory tea-things. Hester was an English girl who had only been in America about a year, and was not yet quite accustomed to the rollicking ways of the rest of the club. “I think,” she went on slowly, “I may take my camera down, if you like; it’ll be rather good fun to take pictures of us all.”

“Yes, indeed; you must take your camera,” said Marjorie. “What larks! We’ll have jolly pictures. And if Helen takes her banjo we can sing songs and have concerts, and—oh, dear, the time won’t be half long enough!”

“Send me up a picture of the group when you’ve spoiled your dinner in the cooking, and haven’t anything to eat,” said grandma, slyly.

“Now, Grandma Cassandra, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Marjorie; “but you can’t dampen our spirits with your dire prognostications; we have too much confidence in our own capabilities. Skip along, girls; I’m going to get ready now, and we’ll all meet at the station.”

The crowd scattered, and Millicent Payne said: “Well, I’m the last little Injun, and I reckon I’ll go too, and then there’ll be none.”

Millicent Payne was Marjorie’s dearest friend and chum, and lived next door; at least, she was supposed to, but she almost lived at the Bonds’. Millicent was a delightful girl to know; she was so clever and bright, and took such an interest in anything that interested anybody else—such a kind, whole-hearted interest, that was neither curious nor critical. And she had such funny little tricks of imagination. If, for any reason, her surroundings were not quite what she wished they were, she immediately created for herself an environment that suited her better, and, quite oblivious of facts, lived and moved among her fancies. She was devoted to stories and fairy-tales, and would repeat them in an irresistibly funny manner, becoming at times so imbued with the spirit of fantasy that she seemed a veritable witch or pixy herself.

“Run along, Millikens,” called Marjorie. “Come back when you’re ready, and we’ll go down together.”