People of the Whirlpool: From The Experience Book of a Commuter's WifeWright, Mabel Osgood
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People of the Whirlpool: From The Experience Book of a Commuter's Wife
Wright, Mabel Osgood
Diary fiction; Epistolary fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
Since her return Sylvia has looked pale and seemed less buoyant. She is
much disappointed because her plan of going to Rockcliffe to see her
class graduate cannot be carried out. Miss Lavinia had promised to go
with her, and the poor child was looking forward to a week of girlish
pleasure among the friends with whom she had spent two years, when, lo
and behold! the rose and strawberry festival, that the Lady of the Bluffs
had stirred up for the benefit of the hospital, assumed such huge
proportions that the entire colony became involved, and the dates
conflicting, it was impossible for Sylvia to leave home without entirely
tipping over her mother's plans.
The places on the north side of the Bluff road are to be thrown open,
grand-chain fashion, each contributing something by way of entertainment,
games, a merry-go-round brought with great expense from the city, fortune
telling, a miniature show of pet animals, and an amateur circus, being a
few of the many attractions offered.
The spectators are to pay a fee and enter by the Ponsonbys', the first
place on the south, and gradually work their way up to the Jenks-Smiths',
where the rose garden and an elaborate refreshment booth will be reached.
The Latham garden is too new to make any showing, but Mrs. Latham, who
has been much in New York of late, promises something novel in the way of
a tea room in her great reception hall, while Mrs. Jenks-Smith insisted
that Sylvia should have charge of her rose booth, saying: "Your name's
suitable for the business, you'll look well in a simple hat and baggy
mull gown, such as artists always want to put on the people they paint,
and I must positively have some one who'll stay by me and see that things
are not torn to bits, for all the rest of the girls will slide off with
the first pair of trousers that comes along. Anyway, you don't match the
little Ponsonby and Chatfield minxes that your mother has chosen for her
six Geisha girls, for you are a head taller than the bunch."
Nothing is talked of now but this fête. Of course it will help the
hospital, even though ten times the amount is being spent upon the
preparation than any sum that can possibly be made for the charity; but
it pleases the people to spend. Father says that the Whirlpoolers are
already bored; that they have used up the place, for the time being, and
if it were not for this festival, the Bluffs would be deserted for
Newport and Long Island long before July.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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