Chapter XI: Taffy Pulling

Vera found that being cool was very dull. Besides, it had no effect upon the others. As time went by and the gay strains of the piano mingled with talk and laughter filled the air, and the dancing began, and the two girls whirled by, their twirling skirts almost brushing hers, it dawned upon her that she was being left out in the cold! Her coolness was reacting upon herself! If Alene had helped her by devoting herself to her, to the exclusion of the others, she felt that she might have carried out her original program. As it was, she came to the conclusion that Alene was too stupid to perceive her superiority.

Shortly after the dancers had sunk on a divan near the piano, Vera came in from the library, declaring that she too wished to dance; but the girls failed to respond to the invitation, saying they were tired.

Presently with a smile she slipped up to Alene and gave her what on the surface seemed a playful pinch on the arm but Alene drew back with a rueful glance while tears of pain came into her eyes, and when she thought herself unobserved she pulled up her sleeve and found a great bruised spot already getting black and blue.

"Oh!" the watchful Ivy commenced but she checked herself and pretended not to have seen this little by-play. Somewhat later when Alene was sitting beside Ivy, whose arm was around her waist, Vera came again to Alene and with some humorous remark reached out to give her another pinch. As Alene shrank back, Vera gave a scream and turned suddenly away.

"Oh, that vicious Alene, she can't take a joke!" she cried, rubbing her arm, but Hermione to whom she complained gave her little sympathy.

"Serves you right," was all she replied.

Laura, looking up from a book in which she had been absorbed, received an expressive glance from Ivy which told her as plainly as words that something unusual had taken place. She learned what it was when they found themselves apart.

"Poor Alene could hardly keep the tears back and when Vera came with that sweet, unconscious air, and reached for a second pinch, Alene put out her hand to ward her off--at the same time mine flew up some way, I don't know how, it seemed to go of its own accord and Vera didn't know what had happened! Neither did Alene! I thought I'd die laughing when she turned round to me and asked, 'What's the matter with Vera?'. 'Looks as if she had a pain,' said I--"

"She thinks it was Alene, so she won't bother her again. I've heard the girls at school talking of the Ramsey grip! She only uses it when she's vexed with a girl. I don't see what Alene did to her!"

"She doesn't want her to be so friendly with us," explained the observant Ivy.

Laura laughed.

"She doesn't know that Alene is a true Happy-Go-Lucky," she said with proud confidence.

"No, they stick together like--like postage stamps!"

"Girls," cried Alene, "I'm taking Hermie and Vera up to see the tower room. Do you care to come along?"

"Not I, thank you, I'll wait for some brighter day," returned Ivy.

"The distinguished author of the Sunset Book does not wish to look from the tower window upon anything less than a sunset!" explained Laura. "So I'll stay and try to console her in the absence of one."

Ivy curled herself among the cushions of the friendly little sofa in the cosy corner and fell to dreaming, while Laura sat at the piano and played several pieces, some of which, though very difficult, she rendered by ear with expression and fidelity. Laura's talent was fully known to Ivy, who on this occasion found the sweet sounds chiming in with her own idle fancies.

How long she lay snuggled there, half hid by the crimson curtains, while the rain made its unwearied assault upon the window panes and the wind soughed mournfully among the trees, she did not know. When she awoke, Laura was playing the two step, to the wonder and admiration of the Ramsey girls who were practising the dance together. Ivy did not see Alene anywhere and for a moment she had a strange, half-waking dream, that she was upstairs all alone in the tower room, weeping because Vera had beat and pinched her.

"Why didn't I go up with them? I thought only of myself, as usual," Ivy muttered. She was on the point of rising to go in search of Alene when a noise was heard and there in the doorway stood a queer little figure enveloped from head to foot in a blue gingham apron. That she was no stranger was evidenced by Prince leaping joyfully beside her.

"I've come to invite you-alls to a taffy pulling in the kitchen," she said, with a drawl and an odd little courtesy that made everybody laugh, "No one admitted except _en costume_," pointing to her apron, "so each of you must find one hidden somewhere in the hall or dining-room!"

"Hurrah!"

"Good fun!"

"Come along!"

A rush was made and the search began.

Ivy was the first to find an apron in the folds of an umbrella on the hall rack, the very place where, strange to say, Laura had searched unsuccessfully a moment before. With the help of the latter she was soon draped in its red and white bars and joined Alene in watching the others.

Hermione's search at the back of a door was rewarded by the discovery of a costume hanging on the knob; Vera found another folded under a cushion in the dining-room and Laura, by lifting the lid of a covered-dish on the sideboard, disclosed the last.

"We look like a crowd of orphans out for a walk," said Ivy, as holding on to each other's apron strings, they filed into the kitchen.

"I'm the mammy and you-alls are tied to my apron string! Behave yourselves, chillun!" cried Alene, glancing back warningly along the line.

The kitchen was a square room with tiled-linoleum floor covering. A highly-polished, range whose copper boiler glowed like a mirror occupied one side along with a spotless sink; besides a mammoth cupboard, there was an old-fashioned corner cupboard with glass upper doors; two well-scoured tables stood at convenient points, the one near the window having a rug beside it and a hospitable rocking chair, which, with a few other chairs, a small time-piece and a calendar, completed the furnishings. The wide door opened upon a commodious porch with two steps leading to the garden.

It was a very jewel of a kitchen, this in which good Mrs. Major reigned queen. Mr. Dawson declared that he always regarded his boots doubtfully ere venturing in upon the floor and that he was afraid to touch the immaculate objects it contained.

"Do you really cook potatoes and make vulgar mush in those pots on that range? Do you actually use these tables?" he would ask, and one day, running his hand across a shelf, he pretended to find a speck of dust which he carried away in triumph to preserve.

"You girls think I'm only fooling," he said to Kizzie and Alene one day; "but I assure you if I were to make a grease-spot on that table I'd run away with visions of Mrs. Major, butcher knife in hand, at my heels, and I'd never dare to enter the house again!"

His niece did not share in his scruples as she and her guests entered upon the spot dedicated to quiet and order, and soon, like spirits of disorder, upset its calm. Half a dozen cooking utensils were brought forth, drawers opened, cupboards and pantry rifled.

"One would think we each had forty mouths to eat with, judging by all the material set out," said Laura, who, following where the others led in their mad assault upon the provisions, tried to keep a semblance of order, by returning things to their places.

Amid all the havoc Vera was the only one who preserved her calm. Seated in the rocking chair, she swung lazily back and forth, pausing occasionally to reach for a cube of sugar or to taste the various condiments on the table. She was enjoying herself thoroughly in spite of the consciousness that it was all on a par with tissue-paper hats and other affairs peculiar to the Happy-Go-Luckys, that queer club of which she had heard.

"They get a lot of fun out of it. I don't see why the girls in our set couldn't start one!"

While she pictured herself presiding over the new club, which no one outside the favored few would be allowed to enter, the other girls, after careful measuring, had placed on the range a pot half filled with the materials necessary for the taffy of which Alene wished to make enough not for themselves only, but to share liberally with all the Lee and Bonner children.

"Sweets to make it sweet, and sours to make it sour, fire to heat, water to dissolve, and butter to make it run down our throats!" intoned Ivy like a witch making an incantation over her brew, while Alene, taking a large spoon, kept stirring the mixture until, exhausted, she was relieved by Hermione.

"Our motto is 'Keep Stirring,'" said Hermione; "but this takes so long a time to thicken, my arm's about broke."

"I never made sugar taffy, but molasses doesn't take any time hardly!" returned Laura.

After a consultation the mixture was emptied into a square, buttered pan and carried to the porch to cool.

When Laura went out presently to test it, she uttered a cry of dismay.

"It's gone back to sugar, girls!" she announced when the others came hastily to investigate.

Sure enough, instead of taffy ready for pulling, they found a sheet of sugar that could be broken into pieces.

"Put the pan back on the stove with some water, and let it melt, so we can try again," someone suggested.

They made surmises as to where the fault lay.

"Surely not in the stirring," cried Hermione, rubbing her elbow.

With renewed vigor they attacked the melted sugar--they stirred and stirred. Even Vera lent a hand, and the stuff boiled and boiled but thickened very slowly and when set out to cool hardened as before.

"Keep stirring! Indeed, I think if we stirred it from now until doomsday it would stay just sugar," declared Laura.

"I'm sure I remember the recipe just as Kizzie told it," said the disappointed Alene who, as head cook, felt responsible for the disaster. "I'll run up to the sewing-room and ask Mrs. Major what she thinks is wrong."

"Oh, girls, guess where the trouble was! In the stirring, after all," she said, returning a few minutes later, breathless from her hurried trip.

"No!"

"It can't be!"

"We didn't stop a minute!"

"But we shouldn't have commenced! All we have to do is to let it alone until it thickens!"

"My poor broken arm feels worse than ever," grumbled Hermione.

"'Love's labors lost,'" said Ivy, and Vera declared that she had suspected they were overdoing it!

"The third time's the charm," cried Laura, breaking hopefully into the chorus of lamentations, "Let's get to work!"

When the mixture was returned to the fire she took Alene by the shoulder and placed her on a chair with her back to the stove, "for fear her reproachful glances set the pan a-tremble and that obstinate sugar be glad of the chance to escape taffying!"

Whereupon Ivy, with a parting grimace toward the range, gravely moved her chair around and the others followed her example, until all had turned their backs upon the offending pan.

After a while Ivy craned her neck stealthily. She saw the mixture bubbling. She gave a scream.

"It's stirring of its own accord! Girls, girls, stop it, stop it!"'

"I'm not surprised," Hermione remarked. "The poor thing no doubt feels very much 'stirred up.'"

"Yes, it's fairly boiling over with rage," said Alene. Then, forgetful of the prophesied consequences, she flew to test it.

They crowded around her as she poured a spoonful of the sweet into a glass of water, Then followed a hilarious cheer--

"Joy, joy, our task is done!
The sugar's thickened!
Taffy's won!"