Elizabeth Shakes Hands

"Well," Peggy said, surveying the picnic tables set up in the pine grove beyond their customary bathing beach, "this is certainly some party. I never saw so many pumpkin pies in conclave assembled in all my life."

"Pumpkin pies are just the background," Elizabeth said, "all these regular New England dishes don't count; they always have them. Brown bread and biscuits and cake and watermelon. They always have them. The stuff they are baking is the real party."

"This being your first clambake, you are just repeating what you've been told. I know. It was nice of the boys to send for us, so we could be sure and be here early, but where are they?"

"Mrs. Something-or-other Robbins, that tall woman with the earrings, told me the boys had been sent to Harwich for some more provisions, but they will be back right away."

"Rather a good-looking crowd of people, aren't they? And what a lot of work they've done. These tables were put up last night, and every family contributed some of this milder grub—I mean these foods on the tables, if I must be polite. The men dug the clams and furnished all the other things. I asked Tom how they managed. Look, there are Mabel and Madget down on the beach, right in the heart of the bake. I'll bet Tom told them they could hang around."

"Do you know what, Peggy?"

"What particular what?"

"Mabel is my last red-head."

"Well, she's my next to the last, come to think of it. It was lucky we went to the cattle show, and got all those white horses at once."

"I am not going to shake hands with anybody to-day. It's hard to remember, though. Just now I shook hands with Tom's father and his uncle."

"Those old men don't count, anyway."

"Are you sure? Tom's uncle is quite a young widower, Mother says."

"Well, you don't have to worry, because you didn't have Mabel when you shook hands. Now is the time to look out."

"You are safe until you see another red-head."

"Let's go down on the beach and see what the mound builders have accomplished," Peggy said, "that large woman in the yellow skirt is going to come over here and entertain us if we don't."

"I think we will go down on the beach," Elizabeth said to the large woman, as they turned to walk in her direction, "of course we would like to help if we could, but Mrs. Robbins said there wasn't anything left to do."

"We have everything done, I think," said the woman, whose name they did not know. "The boys are going to bring back some vines to trail over the table, and some paper napkins to twist up in the glasses. We do everything the same way every year, to keep up the tradition."

"I think it's awfully nice," said Peggy, "and we appreciate being included."

"We always have a table of young people. The boys are always privileged to invite their—friends. Dear me, I must count noses."

"There she bustles off, counting noses," Peggy said. "I don't like her so much, but I guess she's a good-hearted one. Now's our chance to break away."

They scrambled down the steep embankment to the beach.

"That's the only time I ever didn't slide down, sitting," Peggy said. "I don't believe in being civilized unless you have to. I only ate a cross-section of burnt toast this morning, and drank some feeble cocoa. I'll be too hungry to eat pretty soon. We now approach the most celebrated of all the relics of the mound builders, a perfectly intact mound about six feet long and broad in proportion. This mound is a perfect specimen of the mound builders art. It is made of bricks and sand. A huge fire was first built on the base of this erection, in the ashes of which are baking, at the present moment, luscious ears of corn dressed in their original wrappers, huge sweet, or garden potatoes, clams by the galore, as our cook says, and, I strongly suspect, lobsters and bluefish, to complete the assortment. Dost like the picture, Love?"

"What's all that seaweed sticking out?"

"The things are steamed in seaweed, darling. That's what gives them their galumptious flavour."

Mabel and Madget drew near as they saw their friends approaching.

"Is it a grave?" Madget asked in an awed whisper, as she indicated the erection respectfully.

"It's a giant's grave," Peggy said. "Fee, foo, fi, fum. Can't you smell the blood of an English giant?"

"No, I can't," said Mabel, "them's just clams, and we'm going to have some. Moses has gone to ride with Tom and he told me to stay here and watch, to see if the clams didn't burn. They ain't burnt yet."

"How's your mother?" Elizabeth asked, hastily, as she saw the rising laughter in Peggy's eyes.

"She's better, and she's got a purple velvet dress," Mabel said, "she got breakfast to-day, too."

"What did she get for breakfast?"

"Fried fish and potatoes, and elderberry wine."

"I shall choke," Peggy cried, "anything anybody says to-day strikes me so funny."

"You can laugh at me," Mabel said, unexpectedly, "I don't care. I ain't funny."

Peggy sank on the sand and gave way to merriment. Mabel regarded her kindly, and Elizabeth took advantage of the occasion to tie four shoe-strings in double bows, and comb two curly heads with the side comb of which she relieved the helpless Peggy.

"This week has been such an awful strain," Peggy said, wiping her eyes, "that whenever I get a reaction, I'm off. Oh, there come the boys, now."

"Awfully sorry," Tom said, hurrying down the beach. He gave a hand to Peggy, which she shook heartily, and then extended it to Elizabeth, who was a little farther away.

Elizabeth gave a little shriek, and put her own hands behind her back.

"I've got a kind of a sore finger," she said.

"I'll remember and not scrunch it," Tom said, "if I get the chance, that is."

"It's going to be sore all the week, isn't it, Elizabeth?" asked the irrepressible Peggy. "I'm all right, because I'm—oh!—oh!" she shrieked, glancing at Tom's blazing hair.

"What's all this mystery?" Bill said, joining the group.

"Peggy is just slightly indisposed, as usual," Tom said. "She has one of her light attacks of mental derangement."

"I'm a psycho—psycho—whatever—it—is case," Peggy said. "I'll be all right when I have had most of what's under there."

"It's a giant's grave full of clams and oysters and ice-cream and potato salud and pumpkin pie," Madget elucidated in a sing-song voice, "and I am going to have some of all of it."

"Doesn't leave much room for the giant, does it, Madget?" Tom said, "but you are right about having some of all of it. We have a nice New York guy coming pretty soon. I asked him specially for you, Elizabeth. I know you have a warm spot in your heart for anybody that lives around Grant's Tomb."

"Is he your cousin?" Elizabeth said.

"No, he's just a fellow I see around the town sometimes. We hit it off pretty well, and he doesn't know many people."

"What's his name?"

"Stoddard, Robert Stoddard."

"Where does he live?"

"New York City, New York State, Manhattan Island."

"I mean, what part of New York?"

"Oh, I don't know that. New York's all New York to me."

"I'm going to live in New York next year," Elizabeth said.

"I thought you always had."

"No, we lived in New Jersey, but now we're going to take an apartment in town. It's just been decided, and I am so excited about it, I can hardly breathe."

"What about school?" Peggy asked.

"I am going to study with Jean this winter. She has always had private teachers, you know."

"That will be fine for you," Peggy said, "but don't let's think about next winter. When do we eat, Bill?"

"In about half an hour, or less."

"Come on up to the grove," Tom said. "I told Bob I'd meet him by the road and kind of work him in among the crowd. We sure have a raft of relations when they are all got together."

"Shall we bring Madget and Mabel?"

"Sure. Moses is up there now, right in the heart of the picnic. He was trying to catch watermelon juice between the cracks of the table, where they were cutting it, the last I saw of him."

"I want some watermelon," said Madget, leading the procession.

"Did you see what I did?" Peggy whispered to Elizabeth as they followed the others. "I shook hands with Tom. I never thought. I just did, that's all."

"But you didn't have your last red-head."

"He made the last red-head, don't you see?"

"I never thought of that. Do you think he counts that way?"

"I don't know whether he does or not. I don't want to count him, but I want to play fair. Only I shouldn't think, as a general proposition, that shaking hands with your last red-head mattered one way or the other. I didn't even consciously remember that he was my last red-head."

"Well, then, I don't think he's the one. If you had really counted him first as a red-head and then shaken hands with him, you'd have to call him the first boy you shook hands with, but he really isn't, as it stands. Now that you've counted him, if you shook hands with him again, why——"

"Well, you bet I won't. I'll put my hands behind me the way you did."

"I thought just in time."

Tom dropped behind his friends.

"Bill wants you to walk with him," he said to Peggy.

"Sure I do, but Tom said it first," Bill grinned, "he wants to walk with you, Elizabeth."

"I'll beat you climbing up the bank," Peggy cried, making for the sheer wall of soil and roots ahead of them.

"You won't beat me," Elizabeth said, "I'll go round by the road, thank you."

"Some people have a great amount of superfluous energy," Tom said, "Bill and Peggy are pretty well matched for that."

"Peggy is only a tomboy at times," Elizabeth said, "she really has quite an old mind, when you get to know her as well as I do."

"I'd rather get to know you as well as she does."

"Well, she sees me every day, almost."

"I wish it hadn't been almost halfway through the summer before you and I met. I've got to go home Monday," Tom said, mournfully.

"I didn't know that. I thought you were going to stay through September, like the rest of us."

"Well, it's all decided for Monday."

"That's too bad. It will break up our summer crowd, sort of."

"Is that all you care?"

"I—I'm sorry," said Elizabeth.

"Well, I suppose I ought to be thankful for small favours. I haven't hardly seen you, except around at your grandfather's, and with Peggy and everything."

"I think we've had a good time," Elizabeth said.

Tom kicked out at a giant horseshoe that obstructed his path.

"Darn the good time," he said.

"Well," said Elizabeth, hastily, "we'd better catch up with the children. I don't know what they'll be into."

"They'll be all right," Tom muttered.

"Isn't that your friend waiting up there by the path?"

"Oh, I suppose so."

"Tom," Elizabeth said, "don't be cross. I haven't done anything, have I?"

"No, and you won't do anything. That's the trouble. Even say a kind word. Come ahead, I suppose I've got to collect that guy and drag him round among the animals."

"That isn't a very nice way to speak of your relations."

"Elizabeth, there's Bill and Peggy talking to Bob—he'll keep a minute. Aren't you sorry that I'm going away Monday?"

"Of course I am."

"How sorry?"

"Quite a lot."

"Will you write?"

"If Mother'll let me."

"Does she usually let you?"

"Well, she never has."

"You told me yourself that Peggy wrote to a boy. Bill's going to get her to write to him."

"I said I would if my mother will let me."

"The question is—will she?"

"If she does, I will. Aren't you satisfied?"

"No, you are just saying that to please me!"

"Don't you want to be pleased?"

"Not like that."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Would you say it if you did?"

"How do I know?"

"Girls are the hardest things to get anything out of—Elizabeth"—little beads of dampness stood out on Tom's forehead—"Elizabeth, will you, I mean, do you, I mean, would you care——"

"Hurry up there," Peggy called.

"Everybody's supposed to take their places," Bill cried, "come ahead, you two."

"They want us," Elizabeth said, relieved that the tÊte-À-tÊte was over.

"We're all introduced," Peggy said, "but Elizabeth."

"Miss Swift, I want you to meet my friend Mr. Stoddard," Tom said, doing the honours.

The tall boy standing between Peggy and Bill put out his hand, and Elizabeth slipped hers into it.

"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Stoddard," she said.

The warning cry from Peggy came too late.

"Now, you've done it!" she said.

"What has she done?" the tall boy asked. His eyes were brown and amused, and he had to look down several inches even to reach the level of the lanky Peggy.

"Nothing, really. She had a—sore finger, and I was afraid——"

"I've heard about that sore finger before," Bill said, "there's some kind of a mystery about it."

"We're just full of the dickens to-day," Peggy explained, hastily, "this sparkly air has gone to my head—our heads, I guess. Elizabeth always behaves better than I do, but she's as far gone as she ever is to-day. We've just been giggling at nothing all the morning."

"If you can call Mabel and Madget nothing," Elizabeth supplemented.

"Let's go eat, let's go eat, let's go eat," Bill chanted. "I am so starved, I am weak. Tom and I didn't eat any breakfast this morning."

"I guess that's what's the matter with him," Elizabeth smiled at him.

"All right," Tom said in an undertone. "I'll come out of it—for you."

"It was me that you went into it for," Elizabeth whispered, saucily.

The Steppe children in a comparatively decorous row were much more nearly a social success than on their first public appearance. They ate steadily and conscientiously, and their table manners compared not unfavourably with those of the other children of the party. Most of these ate with their parents. Two boys of thirteen, twins, and two girls a little younger than Peggy and Elizabeth were at the low table, at the end of the two long rows of family tables that Tom had designed for his guests.

"Bet you I can eat more clams than you can," Bill challenged Peggy.

"I hope you can," said Peggy, "my idea is to go easy on the clams, eat two sweet potatoes, one lobster, a soupÇon of bluefish, all the corn I can hold, because that's the best of all, with that grand, sea-weedy taste it's got, and this lovely, gooey, trickly butter. Then I shall really fill up on cake and pie. I'm not going to eat any bread, because that takes room."

"You are going to eat watermelon?" Bill asked, anxiously.

"I'm going to take one of those boatshaped pieces and get in," Peggy said.

"The beauty of this party," Bob Stoddard said, "is that you can treat everything like that. You can snuggle right down into all the edibles."

"I'm snuggling into my clams," Elizabeth said. "Isn't it funny that the clams you get in New York are so distinct from these clams? They are just like different animals."

"They are different animals," Bob said. "You like New York, don't you?"

"Love it."

"Well, here's to it, then," he lifted his clam shell gayly, and Elizabeth gravely lifted one of her own. They drained the liquor ceremoniously.

"I hope I shall see you in the winter," Bob Stoddard said.

"You'll see me," Tom interposed quickly, "I'm coming on to visit you in my Christmas vacation."

"You said that last year."

"Well, this year I'm coming."

"I'm in a comatose condition," Peggy complained at dusk, as they lingered under their favourite tree to talk over the events of the day. "I hope nobody will ever mention any kind or variety of food to me again. If Tom hadn't brought all that candy, I should feel better, and I think those ice-cream cones we had on the way were nasty."

"They tasted nice and cooling at the time," Elizabeth said. "I wouldn't want another one right now."

"And your family are all in the house there, eating," Peggy said. "Can't you hear the merry clatter of their knives and forks?"

"Don't mention it, Peggy. Do you realize what happened to me?"

"You shook hands with that boy, you mean. I tried to warn you, but it was all over before I could even cough."

"I know it, and I had been fortifying myself all summer long against doing anything like that."

"Well, you won't have to remain in suspense like me."

"Maybe it's Tom for you, after all."

"No, I know it isn't. That's a nice boy, though. It would be funny if you really did grow up and marry him."

"I'd rather marry somebody that I knew a little better."

"Well, if you do marry him, you will know him better, that's one comfort. How's your brother?"

"He's pretty good. He—he——Oh, he's the best we could hope for him to be."

"He's awfully handsome. Do you know what's happened over at my house? My sister is getting ready to marry a man she isn't even on speaking terms with. They had some kind of a ruction last night about the war or something. He drove down, meaning to stay two or three days, and they had this row, and he just turned around and went back. Meantime, we merrily make trousseau and wedding chest."

"I wish that he'd never come," said Elizabeth.

"Oh, but he will. He'll be back to-morrow morning, with the bells on, and the flags flying, and a footman on the step of his car to show how classy he is. Just you wait."

"Oh, dear," said Elizabeth, with a glance toward the open window of the dining room where her brother was sitting, "oh, dear, Peggy!"