As they all got up from the table, Laura said low to Mary Power, “Oughtn’t we to help with the dishes?” and Ida asked right out, “Sha’n’t we help wash the dishes first, Mrs. Woodworth?” Mrs. Woodworth thanked them, but said, “Run along and enjoy yourselves, girls! Never mind the dishes!”
The big waiting room downstairs was bright with light from the bracket lamps, and warm from the red-hot heating stove. There was plenty of room to play the liveliest games. First they played drop-the-handkerchief, then they played blind-man’s-buff. When at last they all dropped panting onto the benches to rest, Jim said, “I know a game you’ve never played!”
Eagerly they all wanted to know what it was.
“Well, I don’t believe it’s got a name, it’s so new,” Jim answered. “But you all come into my office and I’ll show you how it’s played.”
In the small office there was barely room for them all to stand in a half circle, as Jim told them to do, with Jim at one end and Ben at the other, crowded against Jim’s worktable. Jim told them all to join hands.
“Now stand still,” he told them. They all stood still, wondering what next.
Suddenly a burning tingle flashed through Laura; all the clasped hands jerked, the girls screamed, the boys yelled. Laura was frightfully startled. She made no sound and did not move.
All the others began excitedly to ask, “What was that? What was it? What did you do, Jim? Jim, how did you do that?” Cap said, “I know it was your electricity, Jim, but how did you do it?”
Jim only laughed and asked, “Didn’t you feel anything, Laura?”
“Oh, yes! I felt it,” Laura answered.
“Then why didn’t you yell?” Jim wanted to know. “What was the use?” Laura asked him, and Jim could not tell her that.
“But what was it?” she demanded, with all the others, and Jim would answer only, “Nobody knows.” Pa, too, had said that nobody knows what electricity is. Benjamin Franklin had discovered that it is lightning, but nobody knows what lightning is. Now it worked the electric telegraph, and still nobody knew what it was.
They all felt queer, looking at the little brass machine on the table, that could send its clicking messages so far and fast. Jim made one click on it. “That’s heard in St. Paul,” he said.
“Right now?” Minnie asked, an
d Jim said, “Right now.”
They were standing silent when Pa opened the door and walked in.
“Is the party over?” he asked. “I came to see my girl home.” The big clock was striking ten. No one had noticed how late it was.
While the boys put on their coats and caps that had been hanging in the waiting room, the girls went upstairs to thank Mrs. Woodworth and tell her good night. In the dainty bedroom they buttoned their coats and tied on their hoods and said Oh! what a good time they had had! Now that the dreaded party was over, Laura only wished that it could last longer.
Downstairs Rev. Brown had come for Ida, and Laura and Mary Power walked home with Pa.
Ma was waiting up when Laura and Pa came in.
“I can see what a good time you’ve had, by the way your eyes are shining,” Ma smiled at Laura. “Now slip quietly up to bed, for Carrie and Grace are asleep. Tomorrow you can tell all of us about the party.”
“Oh, Ma, each one of us had a whole orange!” Laura couldn’t help saying then, but she saved the rest to tell them all together.
Chapter 21
The Madcap Days
After the party, Laura hardly cared about studying. The party had made such a jolly friendliness among the big girls and boys that now at recess and noon on stormy days they gathered around the stove, talking and joking.
The pleasant days between snowstorms were even livelier. Then they all played at snowballing each other outdoors. This was not ladylike, but it was such fun! They came in panting and laughing, stamping snow from their shoes and shaking it from coats and hoods in the entry, and they went to their seats warm and glowing and full of fresh air.
Laura was having such a good time that she almost forgot about improving her opportunity in school. She stayed at the head of all her classes, but her grades were no longer 100. She made mistakes in arithmetic, sometimes even in history. Once her arithmetic grade went down to 93. Still, she thought she could make up lost time by studying hard next summer, though she knew by heart the true words:
Lost, between sunrise and sunset,
One golden hour, set with sixty diamond minutes.
No reward is offered, for it is gone forever.