The Book of Small
How Lizzie was Shamed Right Through
Now that I am eight, the same age that Lizzie was when the party happened, and am getting quite near to being grown-up, I can see how shamed poor Lizzie must have been of me then.
Now I know why the Langleys, who were so old, gave a party for us who were so little, but then I was only four so I did not wonder about it at all, nor notice that the fair, shy boy was their own little brother, hundreds and hundreds of years younger than his big brother and two big sisters. They did not poke his party in the little boy’s face, did not say, “Albert, this is your party. You must be kind and polite to the boys and girls.” That would have made Albert shyer than he was already. They let him enjoy his own party just as the other children were enjoying it.
The Langleys’ party was the first one we had ever been to. Mother made us look very nice. We had frilly white dresses, very starched. Lizzie who was eight, and Alice who was six, had blue sashes and hair ribbons. There was pink ribbon on me and I was only four.
Sister Dede bustled round saying, “Hurry! Hurry!” scrubbing finger nails and polishing shoes. She knotted our ribbons very tightly so that we should not lose them,—they pulled the little hairs under our curls and made us “ooch” and wriggle. Then Dede gave us little smacks and called us boobies. The starch in the trimming about our knees was very scratchy. Dede snapped the white elastics under our chins as she put on our hats and said to Mother, “I wonder how long these youngsters will stay clean.” Being fixed up for the party was very painful.
There were three pairs of white cotton gloves waiting on the hall stand, like the mitts of the three little kittens. Mother sorted them and stroked them onto the fingers we held out as stiff as they’d go, and by the time that Mr. Russell’s hansom-cab, the only one in Victoria, jingled up to the door, we were quite ready.
Mother kissed us. Dede kissed us.
“Have you all got clean pocket handkerchiefs?”
Yes, we had.
“Don’t forget to use them.”
No, we wouldn’t.
“Be sure to thank Miss Langley for the nice time.”
“S’pose it isn’t nice?”
“Say ‘thank you’ even more politely.”
It was such fun sitting there and being taken by the horse, just as if he knew all by himself where to find parties for little girls, for, after Mr. Russell had climbed up behind so that you could not see him, you forgot that there was a driver.
Lizzie looked over my hat and said to Alice, “I do hope this child will behave decently, don’t you? There! See, already!” She pointed to the tips of my gloves which were all black from feeling the edges and buttons of the cab’s inside.
“Stop it, bad child,” she squealed so shrilly that a little door in the roof of the cab opened and Mr. Russell put his head in.
We drove a long way before we came to the Langleys’. Their gate did not know which road it liked best, Moss or Fairfield, so it straddled the corner and gaped wide. We drove up to the door. The