Dorothy's House Party

Mr. Winters also nodded and the boy added:

“This was the riddle: What animal in the morning walks on four feet, at noon on two, and at evening on three?”

“At it, youngsters, at it! Cudgel your brains for the answer. We don’t want any mixed-anatomy Sphinxes rampaging around here,” urged the farrier.

Many and various were the guesses hazarded but each fell wide of the mark. Helena alone preserved a smiling silence and waited to hear what the others had to say.

“Time’s up! Five minutes to a riddle is more than ample. Helena has it, I see by the twinkle of her eyes. Well, my dear?”

“I can’t call it a real guess, Mr. Winters, for I read it, as James did the story. The answer is —Man. In his babyhood, the morning of life, he crawls or walks on ‘all fours’; in youth and middle age he goes upright on two feet; and at evening, old age, he supplements them by a staff or crutch – his three feet.”

“Oh! how simple! Why couldn’t I guess that!” exclaimed Molly, impatiently. “But who did solve the silly thing, first off?”

“Œdipus; and this so angered the Sphinx that he dashed his head against a rock and so died.”

“Umm. I never dreamed there could be riddles like that,” said Molly Martin; “all I thought of was ‘Round as an apple, busy as a bee, The prettiest little thing you ever did see,’ and such. I’d like to learn some others worth while, to tell of winter evenings before we go to bed.”

“I know a good one, please, Mr. Seth. Shall I tell it?” asked Frazer Moore. “Pa found it in a ‘Farmers’ Almanac,’ so maybe the rest have seen it, too.”

“Begin, Frazer. Five minutes per riddle! If anybody knows it ’twon’t take so long,” advised Mr. Seth, whom Dolly had called “the Master of the Feast.”

“What is it men and women all despise,
Yet one and all so highly prize?
Which kings possess not? though full sure am I
That for the luxury they often sigh.
That never was for sale, yet, any day,
The poorest beggar may the best display.
The farmer needs it for his growing corn;
Nor its dear comfort will the rich man scorn;
Fittest for use within a sick friend’s room,
Its coming silent as spring’s early bloom.
A great, soft, yielding thing that no one fears —
A little thing oft wet with mother’s tears.
A thing so hol(e)y that when it we wear
We screen it safely from the world’s rude stare.”

“Hmm. Seems if there were handles enough to that long riddle, but I can’t catch on to any of them. They contradict themselves so,” cried Dorothy, after a long silence had followed Frazer’s recitation.

Handles enough, to be sure; but like Dorothy, nobody could grasp one, and as the five minutes ended the mountain lad had the proud knowledge that he had puzzled them all, and gayly announced:

“That was an easy one! Every word I said fits – AN OLD SHOE!”

“Oh!” “A-ah!” “How stupid I was not to see!” “‘The farmer needs it for his growing corn!’” cried the Master, drawing up his foot and facetiously rubbing his toes. “Even a farmer may raise two kinds of corn,” suggested he and thus solved one line over which Jane Potter was still puzzling.

Thereupon, Monty sprang up and snapped his fingers, schoolroom fashion:

“Master, Master! Me next! Me! I know one good as his and not near so long! My turn, please!”

They all laughed. Laughter came easily now, provoked even by silliness, and again a thankful, happy feeling rose in the young hostess’s heart that her House Party was to be so delightful to everybody. Helena Montaigne now sat resting shoulder to shoulder with proud Alfaretta upon a little divan of straw whose back was a row of grain sheaves; Mabel was radiant amid a trio of admiring lads – Monty, Mike Martin, and Danny Smith; Herbert was eagerly discussing camp-life with shy Melvin, who had warmed to enthusiasm over his Nova Scotian forests; and all the different elements of that young assembly were proving most harmonious, as even smaller parties, arranged by old hostesses, do not always prove.

“All right, Master Montmorency. Make it easy, please. A diversion not a brain tax,” answered Seth.

“‘If Rider Haggard had been Lew Wallace, what would ‘She’ have been?’”

“‘Ben Hur’!” promptly shouted Frazer, before another had a chance to speak, and Monty sank back with a well-feigned groan. “I read that in the Almanac, too. I’ve read ‘Ben Hur,’ it’s in our school lib’ry, but not ‘She,’ though Pa told me that was another book, wrote by the other feller.”

“I’ll never try again; I never do try to distinguish myself but I make a failure of it!” wailed Monty, jestingly.

“But Herbert hasn’t failed, nor Melvin. Let’s have at least one more wit-sharpener,” coaxed Dorothy.

But Herbert declined, though courteously enough.

“Indeed, Dorothy, I don’t know a single riddle and I never could guess one. Try Melvin, instead, please.”

The English boy flushed, as he always did at finding himself observed, but he remembered that he had heard strangers comment upon the obligingness of the Canadians and he must maintain the honor of his beloved Province. So, after a trifling hesitation, he answered:

“I can think of only one, Dorothy, and it’s rather long, I fancy. My mother made me learn it as a punishment, once, when I was a little tacker, don’t you know, and I never forgot it. The one by Lord Byron. I’ll render that, if you wish.”

“We do wish, we do!” cried Molly, while the Master nodded approvingly.

So without further prelude Melvin recited:

“’Twas whispered in Heaven, ’twas muttered in Hell,
And Echo caught softly the sound as it fell;
On the confines of Earth ’twas permitted to rest,
And the Depths of the ocean its presence confessed.
’Twill be found in the Sphere when ’tis riven asunder,
Be seen in the Lightning and heard in the Thunder.
’Twas allotted to man with his earliest Breath,
Attends at his Birth and awaits him in Death;
It presides o’er his Happiness, Honor, and Health,
Is the prop of his House and the end of his Wealth.
Without it the soldier and seaman may roam,
But woe to the Wretch who expels it from Home.
In the Whispers of conscience its voice will be found,
Nor e’en in the Whirlwind of passion be drowned.
’Twill not soften the Heart; and tho’ deaf to the ear
’Twill make it acutely and instantly Hear.
But in Shade, let it rest like a delicate flower —
Oh! Breathe on it softly – it dies in an Hour.”

Several had heard the riddle before and knew its significance; but those who had not found it as difficult to guess as Frazer’s “Old Shoe” had been. So Melvin had to explain that it was a play of words each containing the letter H; and this explanation was no sooner given than a diversion was made by Mabel Bruce’s irrelevant remark:

“I never picked grapes off a vine in my life, never!”

“Hi! Does that mean you want to do so now?” demanded Monty, alert. He, too, had grown tired of a game in which he did not excel, and eagerly followed the direction of her pointing, chubby finger. A finger on which sparkled a diamond ring, more fitting for a matron than a schoolgirl young as she.

Along that side of the barn, rising from the hay strewn floor to the loft above, ran a row of upright posts set a few inches apart and designed to guard a great space beyond. This space was to be filled with the winter’s stock of hay and its cemented bottom was several feet lower than the floor whereon the merry-makers sat. As yet but little hay had been stored there, and the posts which would give needful ventilation as well as keep the hay from falling inward, had been utilized now for decoration.