"Yes! Rosalee's Fairy Prince!" she said.
THE GAME OF THE BE-WITCHMENTS
We like our Aunt Esta very much because she doesn't like us.
That is-she doesn't like us specially. Toys are what our Aunt Esta likes specially. Our Aunt Esta invents toys. She invents them for a store in New York. Our Aunt Esta is thirty years old with very serious hair. I don't know how old our other relatives are-except Rosalee! And Carol! And myself!
My sister Rosalee is seventeen years old. And a Betrothess. Her Betrother lives in Cuba. He eats bananas. My brother Carol is eleven. He has no voice in his throat. But he eats anything. I myself am only nine. But with very long legs. Our Father and Mother have no age. They are just tall.
There was a man. He was very rich. He had a little girl with sick bones. She had to sit in a wheel chair all day long and be pushed around by a Black Woman. He asked our Aunt Esta to invent a Game for her. The little girl's name was Posie.
Our Aunt Esta invented a Game. She called it the Game of the Be-Witchments. It cost two hundred dollars and forty-three cents. The Rich Man didn't seem to mind the two hundred dollars. But he couldn't bear the forty-three cents. He'd bear even that, though, he said, if it would only be sure to work!
"Work?" said our Aunt Esta. "Why of course it will work!" So just the first minute she got it invented she jammed it into her trunk and dashed up to our house to see if it would!
It worked very well. Our Aunt Esta never wastes any time. Not even kissing. Either coming or going. We went right up to her room with her. It was a big trunk. The Expressman swore a little. My Father tore his trouser-knee. My Mother began right away to re-varnish the scratches on the bureau.
It took us most all the morning to carry the Game down-stairs. We carried it to the Dining Room. It covered the table. It covered the chairs. It strewed the sideboard. It spilled over on the floor. There was a pair of white muslin angel wings all spangled over with silver and gold! There was a fairy wand! There was a shining crown! There was a blue satin clock! There was a yellow plush suit and swishy-tail all painted sideways in stripes like a tiger! There was a most furious tiger head with whisk-broom whiskers! There was a green frog's head! And a green frog's suit! There was a witch's hat and cape! And a hump on the back! There were bows and arrows! There were boxes and boxes of milliner's flowers! There were strings of beads! And yards and yards of dungeon chains made out of silver paper! And a real bugle! And red Chinese lanterns! And-and everything!
The Rich Man came in a gold-colored car to see it work. When he saw the Dining Room he sickened. He bit his cigar.
"My daughter Posie is ten years old," he said. "What I ordered for her was a Game!-not a Trousseau!"
Our Aunt Esta shivered her hands. She shrugged her shoulders.
"You don't understand," she said. "This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical! Psycho-psycho-logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after day!-Once begun, you understand, it's never over!"
The Rich Man looked at his watch.
"I have to be in Chicago a week from tomorrow!" he said.
Somebody giggled. It couldn't have been Rosalee, of course. Because Rosalee is seventeen. And, of course, it wasn't Carol. So it must have been me.
The Rich Man gave an awful glare.
"Who are these children?" he demanded.
Our Aunt Esta swallowed.
"They are my-my Demonstrators," she said.
"'Demonstrators?'" sniffed the Rich Man. He glared at Carol. "Why don't you speak?" he demanded.
My mother made a rustle to the door-way.
"He can't," she said. "Our son Carol is dumb."
The Rich Man looked very queer.
"Oh, I say," he fumbled and stuttered. "Oh, I say-! After all there's no such great harm in a giggle. My little girl Posie cries all the time. All the time, I mean! Cries and cries and cries!-It's a fright!"
"She wouldn't," said our Aunt Esta, "if she had a game like this to play with."
"Eh?" said the Rich Man.
"She could wear the Witch's hideous cape!" said our Aunt Esta. "And the queer pointed black hat! And the scraggly gray wig! And the great horn-rimmed spectacles! And the hump on her back! And--"
"My daughter Posie has Ti-Titian red curls," said the Rich Man coldly. "And the most beautiful brown eyes that mortal man has ever seen! And a skin so fair that--"
"That's why I think it would rest her so," said our Aunt Esta, "to be ugly outside-instead of inside for a while."
"Eh?" said the Rich Man.
He glared at our Aunt Esta.
Our Aunt Esta glared at him.
Out in the kitchen suddenly the most beautiful smell happened. The smell was soup! Spiced Tomato Soup! It was as though the whole stove had bloomed! My Father came to the door. "What's it all about?" he said. He saw the Rich Man. The Rich Man saw him. "Why, how do you do?" said my Father. "Why, how do you do?" said the Rich Man. They bowed. There was no room on the Dining Room table to put the dishes. There was no room anywhere for anything. We had to eat in the kitchen. My Mother made griddle cakes. The Rich Man stirred the batter. He seemed to think it was funny. Carol had to sit on a soap-box. Our Aunt Esta sat on the edge of a barrel with her stockings swinging. It made her look not so strict. "All the same," worried the Rich Man, "I don't see just why you fixed the price at two hundred dollars and forty-three cents?-Why not two hundred dollars and forty-five cents? Or even the round sum two hundred and one dollars?"
Our Aunt Esta looked pretty mad. "I will be very glad-I'm sure," she said, "to submit an itemized bill."
"Oh, nonsense!" said the Rich Man. "It was just your mental processes I was wondering about.-The thing, of course, is worth any money-if it works!"
"If it works?" cried our Aunt Esta.
The Rich Man jumped up and strode fiercely to the Dining Room door.
Our Aunt Esta strode fiercely after him, only littler. Our Aunt Esta is very little.
The Rich Man waved his arms at everything,-the boxes,-the bundles,-the angel-wings,-the cloaks,-the suits,-the Chinese Lanterns.
"All the same, the thing is perfectly outrageous!-The size of it!-The extent! No house would hold it!"
"It isn't meant," said our Aunt Esta, "to be played just in the house.-It's meant to be played on a sunny porch opening out on a green lawn-so that there's plenty of room for all Posie's little playmates to go swarming in and out."
The Rich Man looked queer. He gave a little shiver.
"My little daughter Posie hasn't got any playmates," he said. "She's too cross."
Our Aunt Esta stood up very straight. Two red spots flamed in her cheeks.
"You won't be able to keep the children away from her," she said, "after they once begin to play this game!"
"You really think so?" cried the Rich Man.
Out in the kitchen my Father looked at my Mother. My Mother looked at my Father. They both looked at us. My Father made a little chuckle.
"It would seem," said my Father, "as though it was the honor of the whole family that was involved!" He made a whisper in Carol's ear. "Go to it, Son!" he whispered.
Rosalee jumped to her feet. Carol jumped to his feet. I jumped to my feet. We snatched hands. We ran right into the Dining Room. Carol's face was shining.
"Who's going to be Posie-with-the-Sick-Bones?" I cried.
"S-s-h!" said everybody except our Aunt Esta.
Our Aunt Esta suddenly seemed very much encouraged. She didn't wait a minute. She snatched a little book from her pocket. It was a little book that she had made herself all full of typewriter directions about the Game.
"Someone, of course," she said, "will have to be the Witch,-someone who knows the Game, I mean, so perhaps I-?"
We rushed to help her drag the old battered tricycle to the Porch! We helped her open up every porch door till all the green lawn and gay petunia blossoms came right up and fringed with the old porch rug! We helped her tie on the Witch's funny hat! And the scraggly gray wig! And the great horn-rimmed spectacles! We helped her climb into the tricycle seat! We were too excited to stay on the porch! We wheeled her right out on the green lawn itself! The green lilac hedge reared all up around her like a magic wall!