by Helen Wells
Josie Franklin blurted out, “Nobody loves me, only my mother. It’s my glasses, I know it is!”
“Take off your glasses,” someone suggested.
“And part your hair on the side,” Cherry suggested. “There, that’s more becoming.”
“But I can’t see!” Josie whimpered. “Or isn’t that important?”
“Wear cute glasses. I saw a girl in a red sports coat and glasses with red frames, and a little red hair bow, and she looked darling.”
“And your clothes are always too baggy, Josie. Stand up. See, it should fit neatly at the shoulders and at the waistline, here.” Josie looked surprised to find that she owned a waistline.
The Spencer Club, working with pins, a borrowed belt, a donated scarf, a comb, deft fingers, and a sense of line and color, calmly proceeded to make over Josie Franklin on the side lawn.
They had just finished remodeling Josie when Cherry became aware of two interested spectators squatting beside the grape arbor. The two fellows were rocking with silent laughter, and pretending to primp their hair and powder their noses.
“Have you two fellows been there all along?” Cherry called over.
“Oh dear, yes indeedy,” her brother called back in falsetto, and Bucky daintily leaned over Charlie and draped his khaki tie around his ear.
“Don’t we look sweet?” Bucky inquired. “We’re the glamour goons!”
“You wretches!” Cherry was exasperated but she could not help laughing. “Come over here and be introduced.”
“Oh, we couldn’t possibly, rai-eelly, we’re too, too naked without our chartreuse nail polish!”
“And my di-vine mustache hasn’t come back from the dry cleaner’s!”
“The meanies!” Josie Franklin said, and looked as if she might rain tears. “The absolute meanies!”
By this time all the girls were laughing. The young men strolled over grinning, Bucky fixing a grape leaf rakishly in his hair. When they arrived at the picnic table where the five girls sat, their manner changed.
Bucky bowed from the waist. “Chères demoiselles, I am zo ’appy. Thees ees—’ow you say?—the snappiest moment of my wife—I mean life. Or something.”
Charlie, who already knew his sister’s pals, said gravely, “May I present the French ace, Henri Henri. His middle name is also Henri but he doesn’t want to overdo it. M’sieu Henri, tell us—”
The girls smothered giggles. Mai Lee said pleasantly: “Dîtes-moi, M’sieu Henri, venez-vous de Paris, France, ou de Paris, Illinois?”
“Huh?” said the alleged French ace. “How’s that again?”
Midge slipped out from behind the big oak tree, and sniffed. “Et pourquoi avez-vous left me in the lurch? Ne m’aimez-vous pas?” she demanded. “Ou suis-je plus jeune?—AS USUAL!”
Charlie whispered hoarsely, “Tell ’em your French poem, Buck—Henri.”
Bucky smiled ingratiatingly at one and all. “Mais oui. Oui, certainement. Oui, oui.” He cleared his throat and recited:
“Je vous aime,
Je vous adore,
Que voulez-vous
L’encore?”
There was applause.
Midge sniffed a second time. “Your French accent sounds like peanuts going through the roaster.”
“You simply don’t appreciate me,” Bucky said. “But all fooling aside, will somebody name names or do I have to call you, ’Hey, you!’”
“You might hit us over the head with a crowbar, if you want to attract our attention,” Gwen suggested. She nudged Cherry, “Run right out and get M’sieu Henri a nice, fresh crowbar. Oh, very well! I’m Gwen Jones, spelled Jones.”
“And Josie,” Cherry said, “Mai Lee, and Bertha.”
Bucky grinned at all of them and said:
“Now Charlie Ames will entertain with his recitation.”
Charlie’s blue eyes looked blank for a moment. Then he struck a pose and declaimed:
“The organ pealed potatoes,
‘Lard’ was rendered by the choir,
The sexton, rung the dishrag,
Someone set the church on fire.
‘Holy smoke!’ the preacher shouted,
In the fire he lost his hair;
Now his head resembles heaven,
For there is no parting there.”
This was well received. Then they teamed up for The Game—silently acting out phrases. Bucky’s team led off with “Minors not allowed.” Midge was histrionic as a miner, “not” was knotting everything they could lay hands on, and for “allowed” they pantomimed beating drums, shouting, and covering their ears with their hands for “loud.” Cherry’s team responded with “Sunny Side Up.” Charlie was “Sonny,” toddling around with knees bent after his “mother,” Mai Lee. For “side,” Cherry, Charlie, Mai Lee, and Josie all lay down in the grass, side by side, on their sides. They wobbled with laughter while the other team guessed “corpses, sausages, four, down” and “they’ve gone crazy!” and finally caught on when Cherry repeatedly pointed to her side. Bucky’s team stymied Cherry’s team with “Duncan Phyfe”—acting out “dunk,” “in,” and for “fife,” strenuously miming the famous Revolutionary trio, waving flag, drummer, bandage over the eye, fife, and all. Cherry’s team was violently enacting David and Goliath, and tossing pennies about and impersonating policemen—to build up to “David Copperfield”—when Mrs. Ames called them.
“Are you hungry enough yet for the picnic supper?”
“Oh, sure, always hungry!” Bucky sang out, then looked embarrassed. “Mrs. Ames, can we help you?”
“No, thanks, everything is ready.”
“Good,” Bucky said candidly. “I hate helping. But I will, I will, Mrs. Ames. It’s my better nature creeping up on me, darn it.”
How Mr. and Mrs. Ames, Cherry, Gwen, Josie, Bertha, Mai Lee, Charlie, Bucky, and Midge all piled into the family sedan (named Nellie) was inexplicable. It took them some time and experimenting to achieve. Neighbors gathered at their porch rails to watch and to call packing suggestions. Midge fell out once. Finally the parents and the two boys squeezed into the front seat, and the six girls filled the back to the roof. When they were all in, Mrs. Ames remembered she had left the two immense hampers of food sitting on the step, and where would they put them anyway?
Mr. Ames shut off the engine and said wearily:
“Look here. I will whistle bird calls, Charlie can strew papers and peanut shells over the lawn, and the rest of you can jostle one another. That way, we can stay right in our own front yard and still have all the discomforts of the picnic grounds.”
There was polite, pained silence. No one moved. Mrs. Ames suggested inviting Mr. Ames out of the car and putting in the hampers instead. Everyone got hungrier and hungrier. The sun set, the discussion continued.
“Excuse me,” Midge said, and wormed her way out of the car.
She went over to the hampers, opened one, extracted a sandwich, and—before the assembled company—munched.
“I can’t wait,” Midge said, unabashed.
“Neither can I,” admitted Bucky. “Yippee! I’m starved.”
“Will somebody kindly hit me with a hard-boiled egg?” Gwen said.
Mr. Ames declared this an emergency, and they picnicked in the yard. Three small boys showed up, over the back fence, to help them dispose of the ice cream. A dog and two cats also joined their party. They ate and laughed and joked, until a huge round yellow moon hung in the tree branches like a lantern.
Bucky, Cherry found, had somewhere in the proceedings established himself at her side.
“I have things to say to you,” he said. “Such as, you look like a battle-ax in your brother’s snapshots, but you turn out to be my idea of a gorgeous—”
“Never mind,” Cherry interrupted, laughing.
He whispered in her ear, “I have to be attentive to my hostess, don’t I? M’sieu Henri is always polite.”
Cherry supposed that was the plain truth, but her heart preferred not to believe it.<
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The other girls demanded to know what Cherry and Bucky were whispering about.
Bucky’s answer was, “Let’s all go swimming.”
“Swimming at night?”
“That’s the best time.”
Down to the river trooped the six nurses and the two young men. After renting bathhouses and changing into bathing suits, they ran along the sand, cold now without the sun, and splashed into the broad, deep Wabash River. The water felt cool, almost cold, and silky. Night sky and night water were so dark that they were all merely pale blurs, voices.
Charlie and Bucky saw to it that each of the six ladies was thoroughly ducked. Then they started a long, steady swim out to the anchored float. They were not much inclined to talk, with the prairie moon lighting the wake they kicked up, and outlining their half-seen faces. A quiet mood settled over them. There was Bucky, swimming along, again at Cherry’s side.
At the float, they climbed out of the water, and sat dripping and shivering a little on the rocking raft. They sang, they talked a bit. But mostly they watched and felt the magic of the summer night.
And Bucky said to Cherry, lightly but very low, “I certainly have things to say to you, Princess.”
CHAPTER VII
Romance in Reverse
BRIGHT AND EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, THERE WAS A loud banging on the girls’ doors.
“Get up!” Charlie called. “The sun is shining and we’re going to the county fair!”
The only protest at being awakened early came from Bucky, as he staggered down the stairs. Even Midge, who had stayed overnight at the Ameses, willingly yawned herself awake. None of the girls had slept much the night before. Who wanted to sleep, as Gwen said, when they could visit—they could sleep some other time. Part of their talk had consisted of wails at Cherry: “Lucky—to have Bucky falling for you!”
“Oh, no,” Cherry had said modestly. “He’s just being nice to me because I’m his hostess.”
But she convinced no one, not even herself. The girls’ teasing planted the idea in Cherry’s head. She fell asleep thinking of Bucky’s crooked grin.
And now, in the test of broad daylight, with Bucky gallantly putting cream and sugar in her coffee for her, Cherry looked at him with increased interest. He certainly was a darling. Maybe he did like her. Maybe her friends were right. Well, she would wait and see what today would bring. And if it brought her a real conquest of Bucky, that would be very, very nice!
“Don’t get all mushy and woozy, Ames,” she warned herself. “Remember, you’ve been working so long and hard that practically any nice young man would look awfully good to you.”
But Bucky really was someone special, and it was hard to hold on to her heart when he whispered to her:
“Do you always look so ravishing first thing in the morning? Good grief, most gals I’ve seen at this hour look like tired dishrags. You have roses in your cheeks and your eyes are shiny and—gee, you’re even civil at breakfast!”
“Ever been to a county fair?”
“Don’t change the subject. Why won’t you take me seriously?”
“They have pigs and carrousels and side shows.” “All right, Cherry, I’ll take you for a ride on everything. On one condition.”
“Oh, I’m in fine condition, thanks,” Cherry giggled.
“Look, Princess, we’re speaking English. I think—Listen, Cherry, the condition is this: Will you let me ask you a question? Later on? I really am stuck for an answer.”
Cherry was amazed but kept it to herself. “That will cost you one ferris wheel ride extra.”
“Sold.”
Charlie drove up in the family car. Giggling and in high spirits, the girls tumbled into it. They set off along green country roads for an all-day jaunt to the fair.
In a big stretch of trees they found cars parked hundreds deep, saw a maze of wire-fenced streets and wooden buildings, heard the barkers and the tinny music of the merry-go-round. A ferris wheel rose in outline against the brilliant blue sky.
“Me for the flower show!” Mai Lee exclaimed as they tumbled out of their parked car.
“I want to see the prize livestock,” Bertha Larsen said. “And the preserving and baking exhibits.”
“And the handmade bedspreads and quilting,” Josie squealed.
Both men groaned. What they wanted was to see the rodeo.
“But that isn’t until this afternoon,” Cherry said, consulting a handbill. “Let’s just start walking and do everything as we come to it, mm?”
They strolled along in the festive fairgrounds. Crowds had already gathered. Messrs. Ames and Hall gallantly endowed their six ladies with spun candy on sticks and a carrousel ride, to open proceedings. They paused to admire the cows, became acquainted with the horses, and met a prize pig.
“Pig looks like you, Hall,” Charlie declared.
“He does not!” Cherry defended him indignantly.
“You mean the pig is better looking?” Midge said bitterly. She could not forgive Bucky for paying all his compliments to Cherry and none to her.
Bucky laughed and said he knew a way to settle it—if Josie would use her camera. They took a snapshot of Bucky and the pig together. “Both smiling,” Josie said.
“Let’s all have our pictures taken,” Bertha proposed. “While our faces are still clean.”
They wandered over to the carnival grounds of the fair, stopping for pink lemonades on the way. The photographer’s barker spotted them coming.
“Step right this way—ladeez and gen’mum—have your pitcha taken! A bee-yoo-tee-ful group pitcha for on’y fifty cents, on’y half of a single li’l dollah!”
The eight of them entered the booth and debated whether to be immortalized, on cardboard, waving merrily from a paper motorboat or smiling sugarily from a moth-eaten cottage door. Bucky wanted to stand before a hula girl figure made of paper, with his head atop and holding Cherry’s hand. The pictures came out as horrors, as they expected. Everyone kept a copy, anyhow.
Side shows kept them busy for the next hour. Midge was so horribly fascinated by the snake charmer that she could swallow no lunch. But the rest of them cheerfully ruined their digestions with hot dogs and corn on the cob and ice cream. Games of skill were next. Bucky shot arrows and won a kewpie doll and a collar box. He tenderly presented both to Cherry. She tried to look thrilled with these objects, but her pleasure at Bucky’s attentiveness was real enough. In the confusion of the crowd, Gwen muttered to her:
“Bucky certainly is all yours—you lucky thing!”
Cherry smiled, and shook her head. “M-m, he is a charmer, isn’t he?”
Mai Lee said, “You know you love every minute of it. And who wouldn’t!”
Midge and Josie mourned together that Cherry had all the luck. “Of course, Cherry, you are nice—we mean—” The only one who made no comment was her brother—to Cherry’s relief. She did not mean to provoke his unmerciful teasing if she could help it.
Rodeo—more side shows—more sticky, sweet, awful things to eat and drink—and for grand climax, the ferris wheel.
They paired off for the ferris wheel. Bucky and Cherry first, hand in hand. Then Charlie and Mai Lee, whom Charlie particularly admired. Gwen and Bertha climbed into the next swinging two-seater, and Midge and Josie comprised a disgruntled rear guard.
The wheel started to turn, and Cherry and Bucky gently soared up into the air. From here, the whole, vivid, milling fairgrounds spread beneath their gaze. Up and up the wheel carried them, into the dazzling sky. Sounds below dimmed, and they had a delicious sense of privacy. It was an almost secret pleasure. They smiled at each other, and when the wheel carried them to the ground, and the others got out, Bucky refused to budge.
“We’re going around and around again, Cherry. Indefinitely,” he announced.
The others cried, “Hurry up! Or we’ll go off and leave you!”
“Fine,” Bucky said. After that answer, no one moved.
Charlie and company had a long wait, a ve
ry long wait. The ferris wheel got stuck. Bucky and Cherry were stranded at the very top.
“This is awful!” Cherry leaned over the edge of their car and looked down on her friends’ distant, disgusted faces.
“This is very nice,” Bucky corrected her. “Shall we talk? Shall I sing for you? Wish I had a long string and a hook. We could fish people’s hats off. Then we could go into the millinery business. Then we would grow very, very rich, and live happily ever after.”
“Stuck in the sky with a madman!”
Bucky said plaintively, “The only trouble is, we didn’t bring blankets. It’s going to get cold up here around midnight. Moral: Always carry blankets.”
“Do you honestly think we’re going to be stuck here all night?” Cherry was not as alarmed as she sounded.
Bucky pulled a melting piece of chewing gum out of his pocket and gave it to her with a flourish. “This is for the kewpie doll, not you. Relax, Princess. I’ll tell you the story of my life, and what beautiful black eyes you have, Grandmother.”
This nonsense went on, to the accompaniment of hammering below on the ferris-wheel machinery, and intermittent shouts and facemaking by Charlie, for the rest of the afternoon. Bucky said a number of highly tantalizing things.
“Just wait till I catch you this evening in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the lovelight, in the porch swing,” he whispered in the car, as they drove home. “Have to be attentive to my hostess, you know!”
“You’re an outrageous flirt!” she hissed back.
“No, it’s just high spirits. But you like it, don’t you?”
Yes, she did like Bucky, Cherry admitted to herself. She regretted that they were all so dog-tired that evening, and her friends so omnipresent. Her tête-à-tête with Bucky in the porch swing might prove exciting if it materialized. Cherry wished it would.
Bucky took the situation in hand. He shooed everyone away, announcing that he and Cherry were “in conference.”
It was anything but a business conference. The moon shone down on them and flowers bloomed at their shoulder. Bucky paid Cherry some extravagant compliments, which sounded thrilling in the moonlight. Suddenly he grew thoughtful. “About that question, Cherry.”