YOU looked fine; simply fine! And well you might, for had you not just gone through with the ordeal of an extra bath—a process which even when regular and weekly nagged you almost beyond endurance, and now as a superfluity certainly ought to bring recompense. It seemed to you that if a boy went swimming summers, during the season intervening a good scrubbing as far as half-way down his neck should answer all purposes.

With your face shining like a red apple, with your hair slickly brushed—by mother, and your fresh waist neatly adjusted—by mother, and your Sunday jacket and knickerbockers faithfully brushed—by mother, and your shoes blacked and harmoniously buttoned—by mother again, there you stood between mother’s knees while she coaxed into an expansive knot your blue polka-dotted tie.

Then she turned you about for inspection.

“Well, well!” commented father, in acknowledgment of your effect.

Mother settled your hat delicately upon your smooth crown.

“Now, be a good boy,” she cautioned. “Be polite, and don’t be rough in your play, and remember to say good-night to Helen and her mama, and don’t act greedy when the things to eat are passed.”

She kissed you, and father kissed you, and escorted to the front door out you strutted.

“Be a good boy!” called mother after you.

You decorously yodeled for Hen; Hen, arrayed, like you, in purple and fine linen, decorously made exit and joined you; and decorously the two of you walked side by side up the street, bound for the “Daner party.”

Along the way, restrained by your feeling of spick-and-spanness from customary gambolings, you and Hen sought relief in a preliminary review of the prospective menu.

“I bet you we have ice cream—I seen Mr. Daner orderin’ it!” avowed Hen, by his abundance of enthusiasm atoning for his lack of grammar.

“Gee! I hope it’s chocolate!” you exclaimed.

“Or strawberry an’ vaniller mixed!” supplemented Hen, with a smack of anticipation.

You “geed” again, and offered an unvoiced prayer that, whatever the flavor or flavors, the dishes be large.

On ahead was disclosed the house of the party. It was lighted from top to bottom, and at the impressive sight your courage, buoyed in vain by ice-cream, chocolate, or strawberry and vanilla mixed, began to sink.

“You go in first,” you suggested to Hen.

“Naw, sir! You!” objected Hen. “You know ’em better’n I do.”

“But I’ll keep right close behind. Honest, I will,” you promised.

“You wouldn’t, either. You’d run off and leave me alone!” accused Hen, suspicious and diffident.

With the question of precedence still unsettled, slowly and more slowly you and he approached. Hanging to the palings of the fence, in front, were the luckless (and invidious) uninvited; among them Snoopie Mitchell, of course. Snoopie never missed anything, if within his reach, and he wore the same clothes wherever he went, be it fishing or into the crÈme de la crÈme of civilization.

Your arrival was the signal for a shrill chorus of jeering cries; why, nobody may know; yet they caused you to flush with an unreasonable sense of shame.

“Hello, Jocko!” greeted Snoopie, affably (Jocko, and not, as stated the family Bible, John, being your actual name).

“Hello!” you responded feebly.

“Hello, Hen!” continued Snoop, determined to be impartial.

“Hello!” said Hen, also feebly.

“Ain’t you goin’ in?” queried Snoop. “G’wan in! What you ’fraid of?”

“G’wan in yourself!” you retorted.

“Well, I would if I was dressed up, you bet!” asserted Snoopie—oblivious of the fact that he was not expected.

“Huh!” scoffed Hen. “You ain’t invited! Ya-a-ah!”

“I know it; but I could have been if I’d wanted to!” declared Snoopie, insinuating his superiority. “I wouldn’t go to their old party!”

“Good reason why!” scoffed you and Hen.

This brief exchange of courtesies having been accomplished, attended by mocking tongues and glances you two proudly entered the gate, leaving on the outside these your social inferiors, and advancing up the walk, studiously elbow to elbow, mounted the porch steps.

“You ring!” insisted Hen.

“No! You!”

Whereupon, in the midst of the discussion the listening door opened, and into the dazzling interior you sidled together, and red as peonies received your welcome.

On the one side of the parlor were clustered the girls, a close corporation in stiff little dresses and stiff big sashes, and locks wonderfully curled or tied with ribbons. They whispered and giggled. On the opposite side were banded the boys, in embarrassing Sunday clothes and squeaky shoes. And they whispered and sniggered.

Betwixt this side of the parlor and that stretched a seemingly impassable chasm, which must be bridged. Upon busy Mrs. Daner, engineer-in-chief of the occasion, devolved the task of establishing communication.

“Clap-in and clap-out!” she heralded briskly.

The little girls were hustled, still giggling, into the adjoining room, and the folding doors were drawn. You boys waited. Presently the doors parted for a crack, and Mrs. Daner, as official announcer, called, between them:

“Harry Peters!”

“Aw, Harry!” derided you all. Assisted by obliging hands, Harry stumbled through the crack, and the doors met behind him. You in the outer room listened breathlessly. An instant—and then came a tremendous burst of clapping and laughter, and Harry, blushing and flustrated, plunged back into your midst.

“Aw, Harry! Got clapped out! Aw, Harry!”

“I did it on purpose!” averred Harry, stoutly. “I guess I knew. I don’t want any girl kissin’ me, you bet!”

“Henry Schmidt!” summoned Mrs. Daner.

Hen, being notoriously afraid of girls, must have blindly plumped down into the very first chair available, for scarcely had he entered ere out he fled, headlong, in dire confusion, before a volley of gay voices and staccato palms.

“Johnny Walker!”

That was you. You had been hoping, and now you had arrived. Beset by the usual ridicule—Harry and Hen the leaders in it—reluctantly, after all, you left the safe society of your fellows, and slipping through the fateful crack uncertainly looked about you.

The atmosphere was distinctly feminine. Fourteen little girls stood each behind an empty chair, in almost a circle, and eyed you roguishly. Nobody spoke. You felt as graceful as a hippopotamus and twice as large.

Your wandering glance fell upon Mary Webster. Mary nodded invitingly. And upon Lucy Rogers. Lucy stared at you with intense soberness.

“Hurry up, Johnny. Choose a chair,” urged Mrs. Daner, she being, among her other functions, the discourager of hesitancy.

Poor soul, it devolved upon her to see that the programme moved forward swiftly, so that no one, from the belle and the beau to the fat and the cross-eyed, should be slighted through lack of time.

Mary had nodded. It must be Mary who had called for you; else why should she have nodded? With confidence you darted at Mary’s chair, and seated yourself.

How they shrieked, and how they clapped; none louder than Mary, and none more vengefully than Lucy—Lucy, who, in truth, had called you, and whom you had unwittingly exasperated. Boys are so stupid!

Another victim of female duplicity, out you dived for the refuge of your own sex. You resolved that sometime you would pay Mary Webster back.

Billy Lunt went in next. What befell Billy was signalized by a sudden uproar of laughter and soprano cries, but no clapping!

Billy was being kissed!

“A-a-aw, Billy!” and all of you pointed your fingers at him, and prodded him in the ribs, when, crimson and rumpled, he reappeared.

“Who kissed you?”

“Mary Webster; she tried to but she didn’t do it square! I skinned out an’ they grabbed holt of me, an’ I broke away!” boasted Billy.

After clap-in and clap-out was instituted post-office, and after post-office, drop-the-handkerchief, and after drop-the-handkerchief ensued King William, sung with whatever variations local tongues had given to the old, old rhyme:

and then, as everybody knows, you are supposed to “kiss your sweet,” and “rise upon your feet.” Some couples kissed, but some wouldn’t.

The gulf ’twixt the boy and the girl factions has long since been effectually spanned. Mindful of Mary’s meanness in befooling you into accepting her inhospitable chair, you devote yourself to Lucy. At first Lucy is lukewarm, and with a pout of distaste only languidly pursues you after you have deposited the handkerchief behind her. You obey a command to “bow to the wittiest, kneel to the prettiest, and kiss the one you love the best,” but although this last honor you would bestow upon Lucy, and struggle desperately to salute her, she grants you merely the tip of an ear.

You persevere in your attentions, and by repeatedly twitching her hair-ribbon into disorderly streamers, you arouse her interest in you. You chase her, screaming, up-stairs and down; and in return she, with screaming unabated, chases you down-stairs and up, and chastises you with playful little slaps and pinches.

Other couples are similarly engaged. Yet you all are “good,” as goodness goes, among your generation.

Out of what is rapidly verging upon chaos, the summons to refreshments brings organization once more. The majority of the boys, comprising the ruder spirits and the so-to-speak unattached, gather in a corner, where it is each for himself and pillage your neighbor. The politer boys, which class includes yourself, stimulated to their duty by Mrs. Daner, attend upon the fair ladies.

You watch protectingly over Lucy, gallantly letting her have the largest piece of cake, although you covet it yourself, and essaying to practise other denials such as have been impressed upon your memory by your mother.

You and Lucy converse. Your “Gee! ain’t this bully!” and her ecstatic response, “My! ain’t it, though!” establish between you a delightful understanding. For her entertainment you dexterously insert into your mouth a whole cookie.

“Oh, Johnny! How awful!” she sniggers.

The ice-cream is chocolate and vanilla, and everybody takes both. Hen seems not to be aggrieved by the absence of strawberry. Not being a ladies’ man, he is in the corner with kindred souls, but you can hear him.

The dishes are large.

“Piggie!” upbraids Lucy, when, having been solicited, you accept a second. Nevertheless, she does not refuse a spoonful from it, now and then.

Last come the candies, amidst which are fascinating motto-wafers, always the source of much mirth and amusement.

All the company exchange mottoes. You and Lucy limit your operations chiefly to one another. For instance, you present her with a pink motto, shaped like a four-leaf clover, which says;

“Are you fickle-minded?”

“You are too stout!” replies Lucy, with a circular disk in cream color.

“Forget me not,” you entreat—the words being done in red upon a white diamond.

“All in life is dear,” answers Lucy, rather vaguely, with a greenish hexagon.

“Are you in earnest?” you query—a pink heart.

“Ask pa’s consent,” suggests Lucy, unmaidenly as the encouragement may appear, with an indented square.

You have to trade around among various friends before you can effectually respond. Sly Mary Webster supplies you with “Say now!” of which you immediately avail yourself.

“Will you marry me?” asks Lucy, dared thereto by companions, while those in the secret whoop and shriek at her boldness.

“Of course I will,” you assure her, providentially possessing the very reply, on a yellow oval.

“That’s what!” comments Lucy.

The remark deserves better, but the best that you can do is a “With all my heart,” on a pink star.

The festivities of the evening are over. It is time to go home. Most of the mottoes have eventually been eaten, and the rest of them have been stuffed, along with other sweets, into greedy pockets. Already some of the girls have been called for by kinspeople, and some of the boys have scrambled through the hall, and noisily fled into the street. You encounter Lucy at the foot of the stairs, and hastily thrust into her hand a motto that you have been saving—a fine shamrock in yellow, which says for you:

“May I see you home to-night?”

There is a motto-wafer with a mitten on it; has Lucy one, and will she be moved to give it to you, as a mischievous rebuff? No; lacking ready answer, she only giggles and attempts to pass on.

“But may I? I ain’t foolin’—truly I ain’t!” you beseech, husky in the stress of the moment.

“I don’t care,” calls back Lucy, half-way up the flight.

And so, much to the disgust of Hen, who had counted upon your society going as well as coming, you “saw her home” in the most exemplary fashion—you keeping to one edge of the walk, and she to the other, and between your parallel routes space for a coach and four.

“Edith Lucas is mad ’cause I said I’d go home with her,” vouchsafes Lucy.

“Pooh! We don’t mind, do we?” you affirm, employing a delightful plural.

“Uh-uh,” agrees Lucy.

Beatific silence thenceforth encompassed your route until the Rogers front gate was reached.

“Good-night!” piped Lucy, scampering for the door.

“Good-night!” cried you, running deliriously down the street.

And the next day all the boys in town pestered you with their teasing: “Aw, John! went home with a girl!” and you find “John Walker is Lucy Roger’s beau,” chalked upon horse-blocks and walks and gate-posts.