Alice Adams--Booth Tarkington [19]
She looked dubiously at the little bunch in her hand, glanced at the lawn next door, which offered no favourable prospect; then went thoughtfully into the house, left her twenty-two violets in a bowl of water, and came quickly out again, her brow marked with a frown of decision. She went to a trolley-line and took a car to the outskirts of the city where a new park had been opened.
Here she resumed her search, but it was not an easily rewarded one, and for an hour after her arrival she found no violets. She walked conscientiously over the whole stretch of meadow, her eyes roving discontentedly; there was never a blue dot in the groomed expanse; but at last, as she came near the borders of an old grove of trees, left untouched by the municipal landscapers, the little flowers appeared, and she began to gather them. She picked them carefully, loosening the earth round each tiny plant, so as to bring the roots up with it, that it might live the longer; and she had brought a napkin, which she drenched at a hydrant, and kept loosely wrapped about the stems of her collection.
The turf was too damp for her to kneel; she worked patiently, stooping from the waist; and when she got home in a drizzle of rain at five o'clock her knees were tremulous with strain, her back ached, and she was tired all over, but she had three hundred violets. Her mother moaned when Alice showed them to her, fragrant in a basin of water.
"Oh, you POOR child! To think of your having to: work so hard to get things that other girls only need; lift their little fingers for!"
"Never mind," said Alice, huskily. "I've got 'em and I AM going to have a good time to-night!"
"You've just got to!" Mrs. Adams agreed, intensely sympathetic. "The Lord knows you deserve to, after picking all these violets, poor thing, and He wouldn't be mean enough to keep you from it. I may have to get dinner before I finish the dress, but I can get it done in a few minutes afterward, and it's going to look right pretty. Don't you worry about THAT! And with all these lovely violets----"
"I wonder----" Alice began, paused, then went on, fragmentarily: "I suppose--well, I wonder--do you suppose it would have been better policy to have told Walter before----"
"No," said her mother. "It would only have given him longer to grumble."
"But he might----"
"Don't worry," Mrs. Adams reassured her. "He'll be a little cross, but he won't be stubborn; just let me talk to him and don't you say anything at all, no matter what HE says."
These references to Walter concerned some necessary manoeuvres which took place at dinner, and were conducted by the mother, Alice having accepted her advice to sit in silence. Mrs. Adams began by laughing cheerfully. "I wonder how much longer it took me to cook this dinner than it does Walter to eat it?" she said. "Don't gobble, child! There's no hurry."
In contact with his own family Walter was no squanderer of words.
"Is for me," he said. "Got date."
"I know you have, but there's plenty of time."
He smiled in benevolent pity. "YOU know, do you? If you made any coffee--don't bother if you didn't. Get some down-town." He seemed about to rise and depart; whereupon Alice, biting her lip, sent a panic-stricken glance at her mother.
But Mrs. Adams seemed not at all disturbed; and laughed again. "Why, what nonsense, Walter! I'll bring your coffee in a few minutes, but we're going to have dessert first."
"What sort?"
"Some lovely peaches."
"Doe' want 'ny canned peaches," said the frank Walter, moving back his chair. "G'-night."
"Walter! It doesn't begin till about nine o'clock at the earliest."
He paused, mystified. "What doesn't?"
"The dance."
"What dance?"
"Why, Mildred Palmer's dance, of course."
Walter laughed briefly. "What's that to me?"
"Why, you haven't forgotten it's TO-NIGHT, have you?" Mrs. Adams cried. "What a boy!"
"I told