"Now, we'll just have the time of our lives!" said King, as the three of them reached the nursery.
"Of course we will," agreed Marjorie. "What shall we do?"
"Let's see, it's nine o'clock. We can play anything till half-past ten; after that we can only do quiet things. Let's play Blind Man's Buff."
"All right, you be it."
So King was blindfolded, and he soon caught Kitty, who soon caught Midget, and then she caught King again. But it wasn't very much fun, and nobody quite knew why.
"It makes me too tired," said Kitty, throwing herself on the couch, and fanning her hot little face with her handkerchief. "Let's play a sit-down game."
"But we can play those after we have to be quiet," objected King. "Get up, Kit, you'll fall asleep if you lie there."
"No, I won't," said Kitty, opening her eyes very wide, but cuddling to the soft pillow.
"Yes, you will, too! Come on. Let's play 'animals.' That's noisy enough, and you can sit down too."
"Animals" was a card game where they sat round a table, and as occasion required assumed the voices of certain animals.
"All right," said Kitty, jumping up; "I'll be the Laughing Hyena."
"I'll be a Lion," said King, and Marjorie decided to be a Rooster.
Soon the game was in full swing, and as the roar of the lion, the crowing of the rooster, and the strange noise that represented Kitty's idea of the hyena's mirth, floated downstairs, the grown-ups smiled once more at the irrepressible spirits of the young Maynards. But after they had roared and crowed and laughed for what seemed like an interminable time, King looked at his Christmas watch and exclaimed:
"Goodness, girls! it's only half-past nine! I though it was about eleven!"
"So did I," said Marjorie, trying to hide a yawn.
"Oh, I say, Mops, you're sleepy!"
"I am not, either! I just sort of—sort of choked."
"Well, don't do it again. What shall we play now?"
"Let's sing," said Kitty.
So Marjorie banged away on the nursery piano, and they sang everything they could think of.
"I can't play another note," said Midget, at last. "My fingers are perfectly numb. Isn't it nearly twelve?"
"Isn't ten," said King, closing his watch with a snap. "We've only a half-hour more before we've got to be quiet, so let's make the most of it."
"I'm hungry," said Kitty. "Can't we get something to eat?"
"Good idea!" said King. "Let's forage for some things, and bring them up here, but don't eat them until later. After half-past ten, you know."
So they all slipped down to the pantry, and returned with a collection of apples and cookies, which they carefully set aside for a later luncheon.
"Only twenty minutes left of our noisy time," said King, with a suspicious briskness in his tone. "Come on, girls, let's have a racket."
"There's no racket to me!" declared Kitty, throwing herself on the couch;
"I feel—quiet."
"Quiet!" exclaimed her brother. "Kit Maynard, if you're sleepy, you can go to bed! You're too young to sit up with Midge and me, anyhow!"
This touched Kitty in a sensitive spot, as he knew it would.
"I'm not!" she cried, indignantly; "I'm as old as you are, so there!"
King didn't contradict this, which would seem to prove them both a bit sleepy.
"You are, Kitty!" said Marjorie, laughing; "you're older than either of us! So you tell us what to do to keep awake!"
It was out! Marjorie had admitted that they were sleepy.
King grinned a little sheepishly. "Pooh," he said, "it'll pass over if we just get interested in something. Let's read aloud to each other."
"That always puts me to sleep," said Kitty, with a fearful and undisguised yawn.
"Kit! if you do that again, we'll put you out! Now, brace up,—or else go to bed!"
Kitty braced up. Indeed, Kitty had special powers in this direction, if she chose to exercise them.
"Pooh, I can brace up better than either of you," she said, confidently; "and here's how I'm going to do it."
She went over to the big nursery washstand, and turning the cold water faucet, ran the bowl full, and then plunged her face and hands in.
"Kit, you're a genius!" cried her brother, in admiration, as she came up, spluttering, and then made another dash. Soon Kitty's face was hidden in the folds of a rough towel, and the others successively followed her lead.
"My! how it freshens you!" said Marjorie, rubbing her rosy cheeks till they glowed. "I'm as wide awake as anything!"
"So'm I," said King. "Kit, I take off my hat to you! Now it's half-past ten. I move we eat our foods, and then we can have a good time playing parcheesi or jack-straws."
They drew up to the nursery table, and endeavored to enjoy the cookies and apples.
"How funny things taste at night," said Kitty. "I'm not hungry, after all."
"You'd better wash your face again," said Marjorie, looking at her sister's drooping eyelids.
"Do something to her," said King, in despair.
So Marjorie tickled Kitty, until she made her laugh, and that roused her a little.
"I won't go to sleep," she said, earnestly; "truly, I won't. I want to see the New Year come. Let's look out the window for it."
Kitty's plans were always good ones.
Drawing the curtains aside the three stood at the window, their arms about each other.
"Isn't it still?" whispered Marjorie, "and look at the moon!"
A yellow, dilapidated-looking, three-quarter sort of a moon was sinking in the west, and the bark branches of the trees stood out blackly in the half-light.
The roads gleamed white, and the shrubbery looked dark, the whole landscape was weird and unlike the sunny scenes they knew so well.
"I s'pose everybody in the house is abed now, but us," said King. He meant it exultantly, but his voice had a tone of awe, that found an echo in the girls' hearts.
"Come away from the window," said Midge; turning back to the brightly lighted room. "Let's think of something nice to do."
"I can think better here," said Kitty, dropping heavily on the couch, her head, by good luck; striking squarely in the middle of the pillow.
"Kit," said her brother,—"Kitty,—you,—you go to bed,—if you—if you can't—"
As King spoke, he came across a big armchair, and quite unintentionally he let himself fall into it. It felt very pleasant, somehow,—so much so, indeed, that he neglected to finish his admonition to Kitty, and she wouldn't have heard it if he had!
Marjorie, by a strange coincidence, also met a most friendly Morris chair, which held out inviting arms. It seemed a pity to refuse such cordiality, so Marjorie sat down in it a minute to do that thinking they had spoken about. What was it they were to think of? Something about the moon? No, that wasn't it. Her new furs? Not quite; school,—Gladys,—cookies?
These thoughts drifted confusedly about Marjorie's brain for a few moments, and then, with a little tired sigh, her curly head dropped back on the Morris chair's velvet cushion, and her eyes closed.
How those three children did sleep! The sound, hard sleep that only healthy, romping children know. When Mrs. Maynard softly opened the door a little later, she almost laughed aloud at the picturesque trio.
But stifling her mirth lest she awake them, she called her husband to her side. After a few whispered words, they went away, and returned with down quilts and steamer rugs, which they gently tucked about the vanquished heroes, and then lowering the lights left them asleep at their posts.
For an hour the children slept soundly, and then, at ten minutes before twelve the nursery door was softly opened again.
This time, Mr. and Mrs. Maynard, accompanied by Grandma Sherwood and Uncle Steve, came in, apparently with the intention of staying. Mr. Maynard snapped on the lights, and the grownups smiled as they gazed on the faces of the sleeping children.
"What time is it, Fred?" asked Mrs. Maynard.
"Seven minutes of twelve."
"Waken them, then. There isn't any too much time."
So Mr. Maynard sprung a small "watchman's rattle." It made a pleasant whirr, but he was obliged to hold it near each child's ear before those deep slumbers were disturbed.
"What is it?" said King, who first opened his eyes. "Kitty, you're asleep!"
His last waking thought possessed him as his eye fell on his sleeping sister, he spoke before he realized that he had been asleep himself.
"What's the matter?" he said, seeing all the people standing about, and noticing the rug over himself.
"Nothing's the matter," answered his father, blithely, "only the New Year is hurrying toward us, and we all want to greet it together."
"You bet we do!" cried King, now broad awake, and shaking himself out of his rug as he jumped up.
Mrs. Maynard was rousing Kitty, and sat beside the half-asleep child with her arm round her, while Grandma was treating Marjorie in the same way.
"It seems a shame," began Grandma, but Uncle Steve interrupted:
"A shame to wake them? Not a bit of it! It would be a shame to let them sleep through a chance that they won't get again for a year! Hello! chickabiddies! Hello! Wake up! Fire! Murder! Thieves! Fred, give me that rattle!"
Taking the noisy little toy, Uncle Steve sprang it vigorously, and was rewarded for his efforts by seeing the two girls at last on their feet and smiling broadly,—wide awake now, indeed.
"Five minutes grace," said Mr. Maynard. "Out with your watches, you who have them. The rest look on with somebody else."
Kitty ran to her father's side, and cuddled in his arm, as she looked at his watch. Marjorie saw Uncle Steve's smile inviting her, so she flew across the room to him; and King politely offered his watch to his mother and grandmother, saying the nursery clock would do for him.
Care was taken to have all the time-pieces set exactly alike, and then it was three minutes of midnight, and they waited.
"He'll come in at the window, the New Year will," said Mr. Maynard as he flung the casement wide open. "The old year is going. Bid him good-bye, children, you'll never see him again. Good-bye, old year, good-bye!"
"Good-bye, old year, good-bye!" they all said in concert, and murmured it again, as the last seconds flew steadily by.
"Happy New Year!" shouted Mr. Maynard, as his second-hand reached the mark, but he was no quicker than the others, and all the voices rang out a "Happy New Year" simultaneously.
Then the village clock began to strike twelve, all the bells in the little town began to ring, some firing was heard, and shouts from passers-by in the streets added to the general jubilee.
"Isn't it splendid!" cried Marjorie, as she leaned out of the window.
"The moon is gone, but see the bright, bright stars, all twinkling 'Happy
New Year' to us!"
"May it indeed be a Happy New Year for you, my dear child," said her father, as he kissed her tenderly.
And then everybody was exchanging kisses and greetings, and good wishes, and Marjorie realized that at last, she had sat up to "see the New Year in."
"But I don't see how we happened to fall asleep," she said, looking puzzled.
"I, either," said King; "I was just bound I wouldn't, and then I did."
"You were bound I shouldn't, too," said Kitty, "but I did!"
"You all did!" said Mr. Maynard. "Such sleeping I never saw!"
"Well, it was lovely of you to wake us up," said Marjorie; "I wouldn't have missed all this for anything."
"All things come to him who waits," said her father, "and you certainly waited very quietly and patiently!"
"And now, skip to bed," said Mrs. Maynard, "and not until three hundred and sixty-five nights are passed, do we have such a performance as this again."
"All right," said the children, "good-night, and Happy New Year!"
"Good-night and Happy New Year!" echoed the grown-ups.
CHAPTER V
A TEARFUL TIME
The New Year was about a week old, and so far, had nobly fulfilled all hopes of happiness.
To be sure, Marjorie had been obliged to begin school again, but as she had the companionship of Gladys Fulton, who dearly loved to go to school, it helped her to bear the trial.
She had been to spend the afternoon with Gladys and was returning home at five o'clock, as was the rule for winter days.
She turned in at her own gate-way, and had there been any one to see her, it might have been noticed that her demeanor and expression were very unlike the usual appearance of gay, laughing Marjorie Maynard.
In fact, she looked the picture of utter despair and dejection. Her head hung down, her steps were slow, and yet she seemed filled with a riot of indignation.
Her face was flushed and her eyes red, and though not exactly crying, great shivering sobs now and then shook her whole body.
Once inside her own home grounds, she quickened her pace a little, and almost ran up the verandah steps and in at the door.
She slammed it behind her, and though, I am sorry to say, this was not an unusual proceeding for Midget, yet she was truly trying to break herself of the habit.
But this time she gave the door a hard, angry slam, and flinging her wraps anywhere, as she went along, she brushed hastily through the various rooms in search of her mother.
But Mrs. Maynard and Kitty had gone out driving, and King wasn't at home, either, so poor Marjorie, her eyes now blinded with surging tears, stumbled on to her own room, and threw herself, sobbing, on her little white bed.
She buried her face in the pillow and gave way to such tumultuous grief that the brass bedstead fairly shook in sympathy.
"I can't bear it!" she murmured, half aloud; "I can't bear it! It's a wicked shame! I don't Want to live any more! Oh, I wish Mother would come home!"
For nearly half an hour Marjorie cried and cried. Now with big, bursting, heart-rending sobs, and at quieter intervals, with floods of hot tears.
Her little handkerchief became a useless, wet ball, and she dried her eyes, spasmodically, on various parts of the pillow-case.
At last, in one of her paroxysms of woe, she felt a little hand on her cheek, and Rosy Posy's little voice said, sweetly:
"What 'e matter, Middy? Wosy Posy loves 'oo!"
This was a crumb of comfort, and Marjorie drew the baby's cool cheek against her own hot one.
The child scrambled up on the bed, beside her sister, and petted her gently, saying:
"Don't ky, Middy; 'top kyin'."
"Oh, Rosy Posy, I'm so miserable! where is Mother?"
"Muvver dawn yidin'. Wosy take care of 'oo. Want Nannie?"
"No, I don't want Nannie. You stay here, little sister, till Mother comes."
"Ess. Wosy 'tay wiv Middy. Dear Middy."
The loving baby cuddled up to her sister, and smoothed back the tangled curls with her soft little hand, until exhausted Marjorie, quite worn out with her turbulent storm of tears, fell asleep.
And here Mrs. Maynard found them, as, coming in soon, she went in search of her eldest daughter.
"Why, Baby," she said; "what's the matter? Is Marjorie sick?"
"No," said Rosamond, holding up a tiny finger. "She's aseep. She kied and kied, Middy did, an' nen she went seepy-by, all herself."
"Cried!" exclaimed Mrs. Maynard, looking at Midget's swollen, tear-stained face. "What was she crying about?"
"I donno," answered Rosy, "but she feeled awful bad 'bout somefin'."
"I should think she did! You run away to Nurse, darling; you were good
Baby to take care of Midget, but, now, run away and leave her to Mother."
Mrs. Maynard brought some cool water and bathed the flushed little face, and then sprinkling some violet water on a handkerchief she laid it lightly across Midget's brow. After a time the child woke, and found her mother sitting beside her.
"Oh, Mother!" she cried; "oh, Mother!"
"What is it, dearie?" said Mrs. Maynard, putting her arms round Marjorie.
"Tell Mother, and we'll make it all right, somehow."
She was quite sure Miss Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave consequences to be met.
"Oh, Mother, it's the most dreadful thing!" Here Marjorie's sobs broke out afresh, and she really couldn't speak coherently.
"Never mind," said Mrs. Maynard, gently, fearing the excitable child would fly into hysterics. "Never mind it to-night. Tell me about it to-morrow."